INFERENCING ~,ND SYNTACTIC COMPLEXITY .AS 'I'WO DETERMINANTS
OF COMPREHENS*ON DIFFICUL~Y.
Carl.;, Laurence Bam. ,I
GRADUA~El)WITH DISTINCTION 20 April 199:;
A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts Unitrers:Ltyof the witwatersrand, Johannesburg for the degree ~f Master of Arts. Johannesburg, 19~2. iI il\, \\ ABSTRACT!.
This investigat:i.ondemonstrates that school-leavers" experience the greatest amount pf difficulty in answering comprehension questions that demand inferencing related to stylistic effects in written passages. It also demonstrates that the texts use,d in Transvaal Education Department written comprehension examinations and the questions DECLARATION. I declare that this dissertation is my own work. I~i~is being () submitted for .the degree, of Master 'of Arts in the University of the Witwatersrand,. Johannesburg. It has not been sUbmitt- ed to'any other university for any.degree or e~amiriation. ' ~~~:1~ at .;. ':9 d ;7$'-16 all ' th,:_." . \, . ,. . !/ iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. I vdsh to thank Mr NormanBlight, :!-uysupervisor, for his -r: advice; ];lis insights, and his hours of patient reading and )) note-ti:lking. Acknowledgements are also due to.the Transvaal Education 'I Departmcimt::.for allowing me access to examination scripts and for granting me.six months of special leave to devote tQ;; ~-- ';l this investigation. Dr S G'of}herof the T. E'~D. Ancillary /1 Services encouraged!ymeto undertake the. research. To Mr Charles Nuttall, who provided me wj.th commentqn the" initial proposal, manytp,an:k$. \ \ " \\ I am grateful to the Witt.,atersrand council of Education for the financial contribution it made in the form of the " Whitmore Richards BurSary, to he.Ip me cover some of the costs incurred in the undertaking. Mr GrahamKeats very kindly alerted me to the availability of t;~ds funding. ,My wife and daughteirs have been patient and tolerant of l't~y '. '-, short-temper whenever a 'prob;I.emarose that I found diffic!ult to d(~~Jwith. To them I am grateful. (? ., A) English First Language: Senior \;.I't.~~~·tif:}.cate \'; n Examination, 1.989. Page 1.5$. a) 'lo!emorancium:S~enior Certif(~cate Examination, 1989. Page 1,65 .. () C) Eng'lish First.. . (\~anguage:"''"'Senior1 \ ..,) certificate" '·\1 ExamiI{ation, i990. Page 169. D) Q Memorandum:senior Certificate Examination, 1990. :Page 179. a (l f o (\ v INFERENCING AND SYNTACTIC COMPLEXITY AS TWO DETERMINANTS OF COMPREHENSION DIFFICULTY. CONTENTS page ABSTRACT. i 'II List of Appendices. iv CHAP'J]ERONE. /1 /> /l 1 A BRIEF ORIENTATION \\"\~y COMPREHENSION TESTING :3 AIM AND GEN~~ PROCEDURE FOLLOWED 5 THE TERMS INFERENCING AND SYNTACTIC COl.fPLEXITY 6 Inferencing: Text-based vs model-based vie't'ls 6 Syntactic complexity 13 CHAPTER TWO. 17 THE DATA 17 THE TAXONOMIES USED '1'0CHARACTERIZE THE QUESTIONS 20 Prince's Taxonomy of Assumed Familiarity 21 Irwin's Ex-QAR taxonomy 25 Explicit vs Implicit j,nIrwin*s ta~onomy 31 THE MARKING MEMORANDA AND CANDID.AT:ES'RESPONSES 36 CHAPTER THREE. 39 THE APPROACH TO SYNTACTIC COMPLEXITY AND READING DIFFICULTY 39 THE MOST DIFF'ICULT ITEM: Question 3 of 1989 40 THE SECOND-MOST DIFFICULT ITEM: Question 16 of 1989 45 THE THIRD-MOST DIFFICULT ITEM: Question 9 of ,1989 52 THE FOURTH-MOST DIFFICULT ITEM: Question 7 of 1990 56 THE FIFTH-MOST DIFFICULT ITEM: Question 13 of 1990 62 THE SIXTH--MOST DIFFICULT ITEM: Question 18 of 1989 69 CHAPTER FOUR. 76 THE EASIEST ITEM: Question 12 of 1990 76 THE SECOND-EASIEST ITru~: Question 20 of 1990 8~ THE THIRD-EASIEST I.TEM: Question 1 of l't,~o ""/ TWO EASY ITEMS OF EQUAL DtFFICULTY 96 1 vi J // CHAPTER. FIVE. j 105 THe QUESTION OF SYNTACTIC COVtPLEXITY j 105 KINDS OF QUESTIONS FOUND EAS"IEST AND/MOST DIFFICULT 109 f! ,The easiest· questi.ons.. I 111 \\The most difficult questions / 114 ., 3.ef 1989 II ". 115 The :remain.:t.ng,five most diffimj1.t questions 126 o I II \t j ClIAPTElt SIX¥. 137 ! " TESTING ,READING. COMPREHENSION ;SKI!JLS. ... 137 SOURCES ...(4"':'•..DIF·FICULTY IN' T. E. W. COMPREHE:t-lS!ON TESTS 141 Bibliogwaphy t 150 Appendix ..~ / B C D \\ c about reading will ~e related to comprehension testing as it is practised in south A:6.:;ica. The.aim of the study will be spelled out and a broad oVe):'viewwill :pe given of the procedure to be followed. '. \') A bri.ef ~,),';zinlanation-J:' of howth(~~"/\ majq:r_If' terms in the title are . \\ )/ to be taken, in the light of h'cw recent ref,;earch, will cono'Lude the chapter . .\ A BRIEF o:krENTATION·. Anderson and Pearson, speculating on future directions for research in reading comprehension, offer the :following thr£::ie ideas 'YJ' as hypotheses in need of elaboration and explication .•• in neee of testing in the laboratory and the classroom. First, .,poor readerS are likely to have gaps in knowledge. Since Tilhata person already knows is a principal determiner of what she can comprehend, the less she knows, the less she can comprehend. Second, poor readers are likely to have an impoverisb~ ed understanding of the. relationships amongthe facts they do knowabout a -topic. Arbitrary information is a source of confusion, slow;.learning, slow processing and unsatisfa.ctory reasoning. Third, poor readers are unlikely to make the inferences required to weaVethe information given in a text Lnco a coherent overall represen,tation. "'. l<"orminga cOklerent represen'tation requires drawing precise" integrating inferences, and draWtng'such infe,:t;e,ncesis not something poor readers do rout ..~nely and sponuaneous Ly, ~" (1984:255). f, '1; 1 This inyestigation confirms that k.nowledge'irgaps,arb:\.tl?arx . 11 ('" _..-:::: information and appropriate CO!ltext-constr(~ction are tile Page ~'" ,sources of dllfficulty in reading comprehension examinations. COMPREHENSION TESTING. " <-> Ther,e is no single, generally accepted method of assessing a reader's ability to comprehenda piece of connected written discourse. The bulk of experimental research into reading -, Ii' ': comprehensionr, assesses in differen't1/.TJlaysa reader ~/s al,ility J to recall elements from a given piece of cr;:mnected \\ discourt1~. This recall procedUre is based/lionr f,irmly~-:, establiShed evidence that what a reader finds meaningful is better rememberedthan \'that has not pee1.iunderstood (see '\ 'j Goetz & Armbruster, '19.30). Aside from measuring a reader's abili,:'cy to rememberelements / in connected written discour~e I ,"ther~~are other means that have been used by eJCPex-imentersin ~an effort to assess Comprehensionability. They includ(! plallsibili ty or acceptabi.lity jUdgements, sentenc9 verification tasks(i self- /i reporting comprehension times, c]!oze procedures and ~tthink- If . ./1 i,'. out"'loud" protocols. These"tech~Lques are constantly being refined and applied to a wide Vf,lriety of problems being I i investigated experimentally but, so far, have had little 1/ impact on traditional, SChOOl~!~sedcomprehension tests in I the Re~~blic of South AfrLce , r/The ~xaminations used to u /} measurf;'comprehension abili t~~s in pupils, by al.l registered "Ii . . , educaJ~on departments in thi;,1 country, invariably requir~ /.' the pupil to answer questiotts that are based on a read piece of conneoted disoourse. Foll the purpOses of this !/ ,'," ," /i (I I{ Ii r1/ Pa!je 3 investigation, the connected dis;:?oursefrom Whichquestions are derived, \'1ill be referred to as "the text/sIt (See App~\ndicesA and C). '\ This traditional question/written "answermode¢f in~formation (I gathe~~ingin order to assess compr~J:lensionability ;\-presents investigCl.tors with certain problems~ The first th~t the answer a pupil gives to a questc!Qll .is ">, \"1 .~; "depends somewhaton.the nature of the question and its relationship to. the text.t Attempts to ~ystematize the \~\. production oJ comprehensionquestions have met wit.h limited~',\~~, success. Attempts at post hoc classification have met with F, (I more success" (Johnston, 1984: 154). The .p;:e.,sent:: investigation is an attempt at the classificati.on of II comprehensionquestions after the test had been conducted" The second prop Q.I~~ln relates to the aVailabili t:1r of the text 1\ duririg the test. It is likely that t4henthe text is <\, )) availal:lle to pupils, the strcltegies they adopt to necovez information~~'fromthe text maybe-.tlifferent from those adopted in tests where tru,atext is unavailable. \\ This investigat\ion is concerned with questions and texts that are available to students during the test, as this is the commonmatriCUlation examinatdonproc~q.ure in the ')) i/ country. It is an investigation into the di,(~/ficul ties experienced by candidates with the text available, and therefore makes no claims regarding the nature of difficUltJ.l in tests where the text is not available, for· fnst'ance in tests of recall. Page 4 :tn prder to be granted a school-leaving certificate, all South Africans must pass an .examination in"both Of the official languages (English and .Afrikaans at the time of "''''"/ ·writing) . A Part ()f'l/ this examf.natrfcn..' ,always Lnvo•. Lves a comprehensiontest;· of "the ques.tion\written a:nswersort. \ English-speaking~matriculation candidates who are registered \\ ..' . with the Transvaa~\Education Department (T.E.D.), and comprLse the ''Vast,majority of English-speaking candidates in this proVince, are require,d to ~rite three papers, in ),J the final school-leaving examinati.onin English-as-su~~ect. The fir'st of these papers is called "original lIlriting':!, thel o ¥ second IiComprehensionand Language"and the third. '::-} "Literature". Each of thq,§'\?~)paperstests, ostensibly I different abilities in each candidate! and Whenthese abilIties are scored and added to an "oral score", the -> composite of the four scores is assumedto reflect a general p ) proficiency in each oandfdatieI s use of his (her) mother- tongue. The qu~stion of exactly what these differing abilities are, as reflected in each of the three pap~rs, has yet to be confronted in any sort of systematic·resel., ,.1:1 and since this has not; been done, the assumption tha.t each paper measureS diffel::'ent abilities remains untested. This assumption will becomeincreasingly open to question during the course of the pr,esent investigation int.o the nature of comprehension difficulty (see pages 137ff). \\ THE AIM AND THE GENERAL PROCEDURE TO BE lWLLbWED IN TH~ STUDY. It will be demons~rated that, amongst most Transvaal Ii' English-speaking ma.tr.iculantsr the nl(ijorcause of di~ficulty in"reading comprehension examinations, stems from an inability to construct an appropriate context, from t1hich to infer I' rather than from any inherent syntactic complexity of the material. to be comprehended. 'Essentially, the 'I demonstration wil1. take the form of comparing the pragmr;ltic demaJ1d::;that inferencing makes on matriculants with the syntactic demands made on candidates in the 1989 and 1990 reading comprehension exalninat:i"ons(See Appendices A and C). /;:c---,.~ The demonstration ~_illbe carried 04t in to/a ste~f' The first will require a classifica.tion of the questions the d .. ' . .. .' . "~~')P candidates found most difficult in t~f matricu.lation ;;.~' examinations. This classification will reveal that the lnost !1 diffio4;tt"questions were the questions which demanded a /J partioular kind of infererl.pingfrom candidates. The s~cond step will require an examination of the syntactic !\ complexity inVolved in the successful answering of the Same diffioult q1.t~stions.It will be shown tha't the difficult questions (and the text fragments from Which they are derived) are.not syntactically moze complex tthan other j questions candidates found .eash;".:. II Page 6 ,'i,' 0, THE TERMS "INFERENCINGu AND "SYNTAC'rIC COMPLEXITY". ~ I,' l,/) ,~ '. _~~ Inf'erencing is the interpretat~ion process""':~~st,appealed to~ a ~ 'I I whenever Itesearchers n$~cfto explain how readere: get from what is e~plicitly stated in a text, to what, th~y think, the writer inte.,nde_d:,to convey. I'e is most frequently refex:red to "-.r>: as the "f};ifirig Ln" of inforlllatd.on.that is implicip in a t) te~t. In~\~;4katever.wa~:he. gen7ral notion_~~~_~nference is used" it .f:s: agreed(~t is t;)f central'impoftance to a:;ny .. '. '. \~ \\ ;~,j~}J.eoryoff}comprehansa.on.\)1\/ '.\ ,) I.. {)~. ' 1). \ \\ _0 \~), Inferencing: ".·'the tex'f\", ...15ased~. ..vJ.ewvs. the model-based vJ.ew.. """ .. """'; II Twodistinct J'views od inference procedures are di~c'~rnible !~';-.' ,'~cc ': ,j.·~_·'~ -<~i .'- - _, ': in the l:tte,-,~:a.t.ureoverF£ij~ last decade. The first. is a TEX'l'- !~:~ - - -, "n BASED view of infel;encing a,!;id sees the process ess:en~.ially />. as a seara'll fo)::-_:.-.'meaningful connections between the / ~. 0 ..' . The other view is a VlMODEL-BASEDGI vie~t<(Collihs et al 1980:386) and understands tbe pro'cess as being essentially "top-downt' in nature. It sees inferencing as a synthesizing r, 'I P:zrociSdure,using the surface Collins et al _(1980:3~\5) adopt a model-:b.;,:tsedView of' the " '{" process when, fOllowin~~Bransford and Johnson (1973), they \\ 1\ Page 7 assert that rE:::,,~~rs./- .. J "do not simply connect the events in a / / taxt into a $i'~quentialstructure. Rather ( they seem to create a. complex scenario or mode'l within which the events described might plausibly q,ocur." Roger van de Velde's view (1981::?89) is clearly a text-based view. He claims tha.t "actualized \.inferences-~t include mainly ":1 those cognitive processes which relate (fragml?nts of) ideas to each otheW' thus establishing larger relations and ultimately providing conclusions." His "bottom-up" view of thi~ process is evident "in hi.suse of the terms: fra,rf;f'lents of ;i.{j~ql;1 are synthesized into larger relations and finally proviqe th~reader with oonclusions. ~ . Sanfol:,idand Garrod (1981:5) adopt a text-based, ,·.bottom....up" , view Of inferencing similar to.that of Van de Velde. They state that '. ( ••.the message in a text is dependent on the reader bringing' in additional knowledge in an attempt to come up with a coherent interpretation of the passage as a Whole. one way ,of characterizing this additional component of text-meaning is in terms 0;: the inferences which the skilled" reader must make in order to connect the meanings of the various sentences in a 'sensible way. A '~tatement such as this st\ggests that tihe process is 'a cumul.at.Lveone with "additional" components of text ..meaning being added sentence by sentence I until some final te~t representation has bee.n constructed. When the underlying coherence of a text is not immediately Obvious, de Beaugrande and bressler (1981:101) appeal to the text-~ased view of infe~encing. To bind things together, INFERENCING, I\lUs't be , done. This operation involves supplying reasonable concepts and relations to fill in a GAP Ol~ DISCONTINUITY in a'textual world. Inferencing is,alwa~ys directed 'toward sOlving, a proJ:>lem•••: bridging a space where a pathirlaymigh"t:fail to reach. (Capitals theirs.) seeing a text, as de Bea.ugrande and Pressler do, as having "gapsll or "discontinuities" which are filled in as a reader proceeds, .sugges,;tsthat their view of the process is a "bottoni:"'upuview. Brown and Yule (1984:259ff) go some way towards reconciling "bottom"'up" and "top-down" approaches. They point out that "texts may have formal missing links, but it is readers and hearers who make inferences." This point is an intuitively ;~)rE}i~s.dve/' r one and l~ads to the conc Lus Lcn that "infere.nces a~!:1j)connections people make when at,tempting to reach an interpretation of what they read or hear." They go onto suggest. that the more interpretive "work" the reader has to undertake in arriving at a reasonable interpretation, the.. more likelihood there is of inferences being made. But the qu~stion of how much "work" has to be done Py the reader in reaching an interpretation is a complicated one. Brown and Yule (1984:260) distinguish between "automatic" and "non-automatic" inferences. "Non-automatic" inferences are connections that readers will choos~ to make and will involve the reader in more interpretive "workll• The problems inherent in seeit~g inferences as e1ther "automatic" or "non-automatic II are illllt\edjLately obvious. What for some readers may be "automatic", for othersi',may be "non- Pege9 ,-;;:- ~ir automatic'!II and this then leads Brown and Yul.e to conclude tliat "the texts which a reader will normal+y encounter will , \fJ . show a minimal amount ()f formal cohesion, aSsume massive amounts of bac::kg~oundkl:'lQwledget and normally reqaire the " \~, v.; reader to ma~e whatever inf~rences he feels willing to work for in order to reach an understanding of what is being conveyed*" '. This conclusion is, .·of course, a pr,~blem for discourse analysts wanting to make predictions abo4t the nature of any given text, but it is less,of a problem for testers of /, comprehension abilit:ie~l. The view adopted by Brown ahd Yule leaves;' If"inferencing as" ~ proce§s which is contex~-dependent'l text-specific and located in the ind,ividual reader. It Within any compreh,ension test, both the context and the' texts ::.tjan be seen as being constants ie necessary tor all :teaders and the varia.bility of each individual reader's text \\ representation iSJ in effect, what is ~"eing evaluated. The positj,.on adopted by Perfetti (1985:40ff) if; clearly model-based in that he sees inferehcirig as a means whereby a reader arrives at a representation of the text meaning. There is I of course, more to readil'lg a text than encoding words ,and propositions. The reader, encodes these propositions in the context of knowledge about concepts, knowledge about "inf~),renc::es(inference rules), knowledge about the forms o:ftexts, and general knowledge about the everyday world. p..y text mOdeling '(.lIe mean the processes by which the readE.\r combines such knowledge with local p,\"·ocessesto form a repl"esen~Latioh of the text meaning. 'I , certain inferenceS, according to Perfe-tti, are logically or semantically f01:'ced 01:'il'npelledr ie necessary, and are used, Page 10 '~\, \ by and la~.\?eI to rel;;at~~pt'opositionf:~ to. one anot;,her. These. II .. II "impel.ledu% infe¥'ences ar(~\the inferen.ces readers.t n\ust 3l\ake \\ ' " 1\ in order tOi\..p9Xlstruct a c(.lh.esive text :r:~presenta·bi(.·m. They \i are not l,ed~ssarily what BrC1wnand Yule term "autom~l.tj0" inferences. '\ \~ \" More recently, Ir\\Tin (1986: 27/ and Garrod et; a:b, (1990.\:250) ::::d::~~:~m:::::::'r::::::::: :::::::::y:: ::~::t::~s:re causJl ielati);,ons" (d~rl"Odf s. t~t al 1999: 250) • N~h"'forc\'ed :' " . " _, . - - \\_ \~ \\ inferences 1110.1' ~'r ma~\~~'t be dr,'awnIn the pr~,ce,lSS\llre a \~ " , , \ \ ' , I, ~ \ reader constt~\.ct:lng a \\It''e~resenta.tion of text :\lH::!C)l\ni~\g.There \\ non-forced iJ\Ee'rances ~~re:.referl"Eld to as Vfelabor\~\ti~re \\ '~inferences" b~\'l)oth Irw\~.n\andIGa4t"1>:cldet al. \ \\ \\ \' . \\ ---. _. ; \ .;', -. -_ - ;,\ \\ \\ \\\Whatis import.'~rl·ti:or th~~\,?urpOSSI;?,~'f.this. inve,st:f!-.gat.i.on \\ \\ '\ '\ ",\ '~hough is perfJt,\::,i' IS asslerti6n (1~l0\5: 174) that tl:rve:'\ l;h~?Uld \ \\ \,', " -~! \'\ • ,•. ' • ,'\,~ ,,\'\, ,', ~\~\- '" .,'\ ~ot be surprisec1 :~f, at a~ly\\gJ.veni~\~l~'"hJ.gh-abJ.l~rty:"rei\lders 1\ m~lkemore infell:,e,nc.~esH(th,m \tio low"';',elbility readeJ:~) This is \ mo.st.certainly \th.e .~ss\lmptio.r,\on ,.wh~\.c.~hthe T. E. D. a(.lopted by JOhi\1sor\~.~Laird(19SS,\:231) ta\keis the procelss of /- in~eerencing furt)'ier than earlie\r notions do. The id(~a that inferencing pl~ys a plervasi ve r~')le in the reader IS synthesizing surface elemerlts to\ fill out an underl)ring'" text model. (Brown and Yule 1983; Perf$,'i;.ti 1985) is exten(~ed by Johnsc:m-Laird, to accord infer~ncing an even more pl~rvasive (\ Page 11 r61e ..;;!n his assertion that "the procesS of understand.ing discourse leads to models of the states of aff~,irs that are described".t there is the suggestion that :the mental models he postulates are actuallY constructed by everyd,lY reasoning (JohnsOn-Laird I s ter:m tlhich includ~$ inferencing.) The model ....based view of inferencing does pose questions concerning the nature Qf inferencing that have yet to be answered. If inferencing is the process of filling out and > synthesizing an underlying text model (Collins et al 1980) th~n whatever elements are implicit in .a text :must be " \ ~ ')1 r~liovered from some, store of knowl.edge. Cogni tlve scientists usu.ally appeal to schema~'\:.heory(or related notions of fram~s, scripts, scenarios and plans) when required to represent this background knowledge, but the problem Of explaining how only those elements which are necessary for the construction of a text model are actually selected in "on-line" processing is, at present, unresolved. It woulg be a grossly inefficient system that required all the back- ground knowledge a reaq,er possesses to be instan'taneously '" available while he is reading a particular text. Greene (1987:47) describes the problem: 1'0 demonstrate the flexibility of people's inter- pretations, think of the inferences you might make to interpret the presence of a dog in an antique shop, in a dog home, in ct, field of sheep, with a bow on its head. Did you think of a plaster dog, a pathetic 1I\;9ngre~"a fierce wolf-like dog or a gentle sheep dog,[a sp:oilt pekd.naae probably belonging to a foolish middl~'-:,aged woman? " , If you did, you were exploiting default features ';>17/ dog~\ you may not even have thought about for a long tim~... l,f page 1;;! NQ matter (ilp.atI say about dogs, a lis'b\~nerwill~.try to infer "t'1hichof all the possible values i~the 0.04 frame I am,referring to. This potential for generating inferences has been called the inferential explosion1'. ('>, Brown and Yule (1983:269) conunenting 011 tne~same problell\ assert that Given this 'open-ended' feature of Inferencing, :it is e:Ktremely difficult to provide, for any naturally occurring text, the sing-.leset of .inferences wl:lichan individual r~ader has made in arriving at an interpretation. Th~ prc;iblem,for the purposes of th.is investi~ationt f' how;evar, is -not;an insurmountable one. The discourse' analyst "may be left with,c_nosedure bas~s for talking, in analytic ;c u!/ '"as 0ppo$ed to intuitive terms, about the inferences involved in the comprehension of texts" (Brown and YUl~\19S3:269). Nevertheless, it is possible to idf;mtify and specify those inf,erences 'required Of candidates wheI1'they "are asked to ansWer questions in a compreh.ension test. Most of the questions asked in such a test" must be se~n as CUes or a set of instructions to the candidates to search for the inferences to be drawn in order for the question to be answered~ in other words, comprehension testers dO not attempt to test candidates on all the inferences that can be drawn from a text, tor they are, as Brown and Yule claim, indeterminable in number. What is mostly asked for in a comprehension test at this level, is the demon~tration by a candidate that (s)he is able to draw those inferences in a reading of a text similar to "the inferences that examiners draw~ This point is taken up and explained in Some detail in Page 13 Chapters 5 and. 6 - see'pages 13·4·ff. l-iarksare awarded on the basis of the degree of fit bet.ween exalniners' inferences and Cl~,ndidate··s.inferenr.es. §yntactic comple~ity~ since Cbc.>ll\skyI S Aspects of,the Theory .of Syntax (19 (5) I psYchologists have been trying to understand pttecisely how syntaxJ,nfluences the co~prehension of sentences. Initially, detransformations Were proposed to explain why certain constructions took longer to process than others (see Miller and McKean (1964) - working from chomsky's earlier version). Later, during the 1970S psychological parsing strategies were ('proposed (Kimball, 1973; Clark and Clark, 1.977) which, as Greene (1987:73) commE:!nts,"may work for the simple sentences quoted by their authors, (but) no one has worked out how they would apply to the whole range of English sentences •••1i CUrrent opiCiion is t that in the normal cempr-ehensLon of sentences, syntactic processing always takes place" bl..ltthat (I it may, or may not be used in interpreting the sentence. Alderson and Urquart (1984: 157), citing Schles(inger (196a) t maintain that !lingeneral ••• experimental findings suggest that, at least for Ll readers, syntax only becomes a problem when it interacts with other factors in the utterance." (See page 108 for a possible instance of this problem.) Harris and eoltheart (1986:190) cite evidence for the view that "syntactic comprrt.ationseems to take place automaticall~r" II u page 14 but ••• the ..extent to which the re~v.).ts of such computations '>_ ar~ used in normal comprehension depl:md.son,whether or not pragmatic Or semantic cues are available to aid inter- pretation." This investiqa.tion, will "demons'tratethat IIpragm~tic,.and semantic cuesI' are often available to T.E.P. candida'bes, but c: that they are not sufficl·encp:1",yrecovered/by certain readers '. ,. " (/"" and!it is this incapacii:Y 1Si;:Jt is the real cause of student )0 failure to score well on comprehension tests. The word IIcompleXi.:,:,;,i"as it is used in the title of this :" "'') investigation, is u:~edin a non-ecechnxcafway. Rather than confine the. meaning to the traditional one, by which complexity is defined in terms of units that contain more '\ ." than. one;constituent, and\)~n~the case of a sentence, having J one :mainclause and 911~?df more SUbordinate clauses, "complexity" shou1d be taken to mean "the extent to which the reader,'.S pror.:ess;.ingload is increased." put another wayI the more a particular.syntactic feature hinders construction of meaningI the more complex it is ... <'\ There is little doubt that syntactic organizat:ion affects comprehensibility. Siler (1974) demonstrates the importance c,?,f grammatical cues in early reading. He found that children aged seven and nine had far more difificUlty reading syntactically violated sentences than they had reading semantically vi/olated sentences. Quirk et al (198.5) discuss in some detail how the positioning of subordinate clauses can increase the '~c:."3 I" Pl:lge 15 proces.sing dell1andsmade on a. teadr$r. .Left-branching clauses I iei' subordinate clauses in initial, sentence positions, are , " shown to be more dJ.fficult to" compr-ehendthan s:ubordinate clauses in fi,nal position (r~9ht-'branching Cla1.1Ses). L i, : InVestigations into factors of s~i'ntaxwhich might pose some , difficulty for readers are rmmar'eusand varied. Readers appear to begin syntacti,e processing as soon as there is enough material to work on: The well"'know!?/"click paradigmUhas been .:usedin a number o~; ways to confirm the I findings by Garrett, Bever and Fodor (1966) that readers pl;"ocess,sentences in clause units. Th:is "clausa.l hypothesis" has und~rqone some modificationt, since it was first proposed" The initial claim by Carroll. '.~' and :i3eV'er(1976) that working memoryis cleared of information once tlie~nd of eaoh clause has been xeachect, has been ':;llodified (Flores d',Arcais and' SChreuder 1983) to account for clauses taking longer or shorte?tim~¥l t.o process, depending on their length I positidh'~ 1n the sentence,. their predictability or howthey are organized. For instance, left-branching clauses need to be held in working memoryuntil the m~in Qlause has been read. This increases a reader's processing load. l,l If one is defining ,;"syntadtic cbmplexit~in in terms of reader 1\ \~I processing load. and one accepts that readers process sentences, -as far as possible, in units closely resembling clauses, then it is possible to predict potential syntactic. ., ()._. complexity. The complexity would probably involve clauses too long-to hold in working memory, or clauses positi.o;ned"in such a way as to compel the~reader to hold them in working memory until the main clause has been processed. A clause tha'c is difficult for a reader to predict might be a d a potentially difficult clause or a clause that is 'Ejjtructured in a particularTJIay, say in an A S V OA pattern,'-''may prove complex in the<,ff;::;ycomplexity is seen above. Research into syntact:lc processing ~t present is most concerned with .establishing whether or not syntact;tc processes are auton0mOllS of semantic and pragmatic processes, but the weight of the evidence (see Harris and Cb.;t.theart1986) suggests that ~~lI'ltacticprocessing interacts wi th seltlaTii::"icand pragmatic processing during the time that a reader spends l~i:-rivingat an interpretation. The present study, wh±ch draws on readers I output alone, (1 '~ cannot say much about the autonomy of syntactic processing, but in isolated cases (see remarks on 17B, page 95) syntactic processing can be seen to have affeQted a reader's interpretation. Chapter 2 will explain how a representative sample of T.E.:D. comprehension answers was derived and how the difficult, ques'tions were identified and categorized. Chapters 3 and 4 examine the. complexity of tn.e syntactic ., organization of sentences and the questions a$k~~ in comprehension tests. This is done to de:mcns"C.r~'t.,;that it wa,p not syntactic complexity that examination candidates, ·;1· ... ~. found Ii. . \\ lnost d:Leficult, but the pragmatic processes of inferencing. CHAPTER TWO. This chapter describes the procedureS carried .out en the d.~t;awiiich were used to establish .orders .of question difficulty and tc (~aracterize qUestien types. THE DATA. ,-;: A sample .of 1094 (1989) and fQ~3 (1990) scripts was .selected from schoels administered by/the Transvaal Education r: Department (T.E.D.). The sample represents 10% in 1989 and 9.8% in 1990, .of the total English-speaking matriculaticn pcpulatien Wh.o wrote, the T.E.D. examinatj_enl' The scripts,' fro;:,ttwelve different classes .of achoo L, were used te estahlish which questi.ons proved m.ost difficult tc answer. The sample waS drawnl1ffrom tl;x,esetwelve different kinds of (; . schcel, in an attempt to make it as r7presentative as possible .of the Ehglish-sp~?\king matriculatien,. pepulation in ~... --',-,~ '_,£) \" the Transvaal. The twelve- 6iasses .of schoel varied in te~ms .of whether they Were urban or rural; boys only .or girls only .or co-educaticnal; whether they were gevernment:. run scho.oJ_s :. \ .or privately run schcels. Another two classes bf schoel were included in the sample because .of particular characteristics they possessed. The aamp Le therefore comprised all the 1989 and 1990 s'cripts from: .'j {) an urban, boys .only gevernment scheel; an urban, girls .only gevernment scheol; Page 18 '0 I) a rural, boys only gov~rrtment school; a rural, girls only governme.nt school; three co-educational government schools, one rural and two urbani an urban~ boys only private school; an urban, gir1:;,-<.)nlyprivate school; an urban, co-educational private school; an urban, co-educational private tuto~ial college and a co-educational, government technical high school. In order to compute an index of difficulty, the total number of a.ctual• marks[, obtained on each item for all twelve schools/1 I'; } l '~~9 divided by the possible nUmQer of marks that could have been awarded for each item. The.:'':1,,,,,otient...... v: of''.' this computation reflects thenperformance of the tot~U sample on each item. The item '\!-hatreflected the least number of marks awarded ~'~) /f was judged to''15~the most difficult item, the item awarded the most marks, the easiest. The actual number of marks awarded for each item is expressed as an index of 1 in the tables on pages 19 and 20. In a sample of over two thousand scripts, not all the. " answens which were awarded a distinction mark or a :f'~llillg mark could be quoted. From the total sample of 2077 scripts, four sub-sample.~.\" were used. Ilithe two e-xaminations (1989 and 1990), all the scriptr,:lthat reflected an overall distinction,pass or an overall failing mark were separated out and ~it i~ from these four sub-samples that answer-s have? \1-;;=,;,=,' been quoted for their illustrative value. Page 19:\ TAgLE 1. THE 1989 PAPER. IJ A 10.94 scripts was %amp1.ed. total of . () \:, ;.~\ ~~ Test Item . Total No. Total No. Difficulty order of ~\ !'lumber. ,marks ...awarded .. po~iSible. ind~~. diff rcttltx~ \. :1" 155'6~5. 2188 .il1 25 c' \.2 1276 2188 .583 20. ~"3 989 328~. .30.1 1 '" 4 138.3 2188 .632 23 5 1.'076.5 '2188 .492 12 6 1116 .' 2188 • 5~.,Q. :1.3 7 10.10. 2188 ..4\~",; 7 8 1254.5 ~h88 ,,573 18 9 1484 4376 .33~ 3 10. 5~'3 10.94 • 468 '~ 11 947.5 :2188 .433 5 12 1967 ~"5 4376 .449 ~, 13 10.22 2188 .~67 8 14 1894 3282 ~/?77 {;t 19 15 '1584.5 3282 ."482 ~:I. 16 1;384 4376 / .3'16 2, 17 120.7.5 2188"~l'/ ..551 16 18 ,~" 1260 3282\-. .383 4 19 8791,5 16410 .535 15 20. 1440 ''\:2188 .658 24 21 383~5 '~:if5564 .591 21 ::f2 1216 ~188 ..5~5 :1.7 l 43 550.2 {8752. , , • 6'~'8 22 24 4512.5 '8152 .515 14 25 7360..5 15316 .480 10. () I. \", Page c10 " Test\::Ctem Total No. , Total No. Difficulty Order of Numbei:i;"'~:c"marks awarded. J?ossible. Lndex, diff icul ty. 1 4766.5 5898 .808 20 2 1605.5 2949 fi544 8 3 1266 2949 .429 4 4 988 ';1966 .503 5 .5 1678 2949 .569 14 6 1661.5 2949 ". 56~1 12 7 1069 2949 .362 1 8 1871 2949 .634 16 9 2098 2949 .71;L l~l 10 3828.5 5898 .64~~·" 17 11 2754 ,__~t9*5 •56!)(. 11 12 2775 "2-Z949 .941 22 13 1837 4915 .373 2 14 3219.5 5898 .545 9 15 4001. 5 5898 •67~B o 18 16 i, 3337 5898 .56:5 14 17 3760.5 6881 .546 10 \\ 18 2470 4915 .50:3 5 \1 19 1826.5 2949 .619 15 ;20 1754 1966 .,892 21 21 1063.5 1966 .541 7 22 54~A: 14745 .373 2 This q~·=,thtitative analysis Wasnecesaary to determine operationally which l~f the quest!(ohs were easy anp which // difficult. h" fil Each item was then typified according to tWOIa.ifferent taxonomies in order to characterize the k.indls of questions matriculation candidates found most difficult. THB TAXONOMIES USED TO CHARACTERIZE THE ,.QUESTIONS. Wanliss ,.(1988:2), in co\mnenting on the read Departments in senior certifioat.e exalninations j points out that "there is no easy way of measUring difficulty .of questiops ~et in oOI"C~rehensiontests." The most' oommon way .~: is to set questions, score them, Clllllry_ calculate a dirf iC'!ulty index, that refleots which questions the testees found most difficult, as has been illustrated above. But this method of determining difficulty' does not address the much more interes'ting question of what it is about the questions which makes them difficult. In attempting to answer this gUSI«;;:;iol1t the present ~pvestigation uses two taxonomies. The first is Ci. taxollgmy of what consbd tutes Given and NelY'. f information, the secoQ.c.f;'a taxonomy that. attempts to Gharacterize oomprehension questions in ··termsof comprehension processes. Using two taxonomies in tandem attempts to lend a lfi'easureof con~truct valid.~ty to the o application of the taxonomies, as instrumentsl.b Prince's seminal article Toward a Taxonomy of Given-New Information (1981) has been us~d by researchers to investigate the status of information in discourse (Mazzie ;) 1987) and is the taxonomy that was used to assign a particular status to the information entities that the questions required the cand.i.datesto recover irithe ;,T. E.0 examinations. These information entities in the fOrfu of noun phrases (NPS) constitute the semantio oontent of the answers and demand mentio~ for the answer to be awarded a Page 22 ~~ nlark. The ent.itY which the candidate is required to recover is invariably ;dentifiable as that entity (or those 'I "entit:i;~s) to wij:tdhthe interrogative (the Wh-element) of the (I II question refe:r~. '" l?rlince (1981:235) defines a discourse entity as "a o i' I!. discourse-mode)~; O1oj ect. '•• (which) may represen,t an indi vidua:~" \c (existent ?n the real world or not) I a class of ihdividua'ls,\ an exemplar, a SUbstance, a concept etc." DiscClurse I( .'. ' (1 entities are represented by NPs in a text and each will be assumed by the writer to be Illore or less familiar 1;0 the .) '-' "aSsumed 'familiarity" in which entities mfiY be assigned some !) status. Entities may£~heNeW, Inferrab'J.e or Evoked. Each of theSe, three el1tity-:-types is sUb-categorized in ways that make i) ,\ ' further dJ.sti\ic't:ions posSible. 1jlntities in Prince's proposed model will pos'sess flttributes and be linked to other entities. The attri}:)\lt~$ are importallt since some of the questicJns asked in. compr~hensi6r 'tests' require st.~dents to reco'V~r the ~,ttributes of particular entiti.es~ "" . . .,' Prince represents her'· taxonomy in the form of a tree- diagr~l\l: Ii 1/ /I Page 23 Assumed Familiarity .r-;New Inferrable Evr"d Brand-new' or Unused Textually EVoked 6 ' Situationatly Evoked Anchored or Unancho~d \\ ; -, The first class of entt\ ENTITIES arid t.h,a::.a,;. ar~f ," 't,,J ..... ;;~ich are introduced into D \,-, i 1\ the discourse for tne ;', ·..1t t:L~(£(l' New entities w}lioh have to be or~,~ted by the readez: are ElRlAJlT:e"'"NEW and may be ANCHORED UNANCHORED. f.')r A Brand-'t:I~w,', entitv. ~ is anohored if the Nl? representi~g it is linked to some other discourse entity. If a 'Brand-new entity is not contained within some other .- discourse entity it is trnanchczed or simply Brand-new. Thus in a phrase like "The governltlent of Communist pc:..rty leader , '::c... Erich Honecker'l {T.,:j!:.P.1989:3- see APpendix A pages 2 and 3) the ent;tt.9· !icorillt\unistpa~·ty" Leader" is a Brand-new Unanchored entity but ".'Erich HonecJcer" is contained within the Unanchored entity and so is Brand-new and Anchored to "Communist party Leader'!. The second kind 0f Newentity Prince terms UNUSED. An trnuaed entity is one Which the writer assumes to be kno\i.'Jlto the reader but not necessarily in the reader's consciousness at the time. Thus the NP "West Berlin" used to open the text Page 24 of section A (T.E.D.1989:2 ... see Appendix A page 2) cc:t.l"\, be \\ assumed to be known to the ~eader put not one he would b~ t.hinldng about before peginning l~:isreading. As may be expected, the difference between the New entities, Brand-new and U~used, is a'matter of assumed fanl.iliarity.. The Brand ..::> new entity is not. assumed by the wr.it\~r to be known to the reader and the Unused entity is, aIthd~ugh not having enjoy~d a mention in the discourse. The second class of entities that Prince proposes are the EvOKED, entities. An NP Which has been used by 'thewriter and is ell-readyin the disoourse is a TEX'l'UALLY EVOKED, entity while one that is SITUATION ALLY EVOKED represents disoourse participants or salient features of the extralinguistic situation in whioh the diSCOUrse takes place. So in the E,/.i 1989 : fi:rstsentence of the text set in Section A (T•e;/'D .. 2 - see Appendix A page 2) "a place" is a Textually Evokerl entity,C~ince it refers to uWest Berlin" (already mentioned) • Question :1. of the examination paper (Appendix A page 3) begins "According to this extract •••" and the reference to the ·t.extis clearly part of the comprehension examination situation. "This extract" then, is a situationall~r Evoked entity. 'l'hethird class of discourse entity Prince calls the INFERRA13LES. The writer in using this kind ~f. entity assumes that the reader call infer it, either through logical, or What Prince terms "plausible" reasoning, from entities already eVoked or Page 25 from other Inferrables. In order to interpret "the Pl:.!PS" (':rr.;1!l •.D.1989:2 - 2) l!1{ See Appendix A page the reader needs to infer that th~pubs are the pubs of west Berlin (entity already evoked in line 1). The Inferrables are an impor'cant and complex set of entities and haVe been. shown (Mazzie 1987) to be far more predominant in written discourse than the other entities. originally designed by Prince 'to establish information status in dis06urse., t.hetaxonomy has been used by discourse analysts for purposes of identifying implicitness in text and the nature of "givenness" in discourse (see Mazzie 1987 and Yule 1981). There is no reason why the taxonomy cannot be used to identify the status of the inforl'natj.onthat candidates in comprehension tests need to recover, if, by doing so, a .WiSa;nscan be found to distinguish ohe kind of question from another. This investigation is, as far as ! know, the first to use Prince's taxonomy for this purpose. Irwin's EX-QAR Taxonomy. several taxonomies have been constructed with the specific aim of aiding comprehension testers in deSigning tests that assess a variety of abilities or slcilIs.The most common are Bloom's (1956) and Barrett's (1979). (See pages 137ff for further comment.) Although helpful and widely used, t.axonomies such as these have be€'.ncriticized on the grounqs that they "t:'renot strictly based on a complete cognitive model of the Page 26 comprehension process itsi~~f" (Irwin 19S6: 142). At pregent, 'i no complete cdgni,tive model exists, but some progress has been made in the construction of models that, in dit\ferent ways, reri.ect what we have learnt about the comprehension process since Bloom's and Barrett's' taxonomies. Were proposed. One such model has been constructed by Irwin (1986) on which she has based what she terms the EXI?,andedQuest:i,on-A,nswer ,\j ,', Relationship (Ex-QAR) taxonomy. It has been 'Used in this investigation ,to identify and categorize the examination chosen for three reasons. The first is that, having been based on a recent model of the comprehension process, it goes some way towards answering the criticism levelled at: earlier taxonomies. It draws on, and takes into account I lTt\ostof the recent at.tempts to model compr-ehensLon proicesses. certain crucial f:i.ndingsin the ways, readers process text are incorporated into Irwin's EX-QAR taxonomy. For instance, Bloom's and Barrett's taxonomies Were attempts t() specify the kf.nds of qtlestions test\:)rsas]ced and the answers to these questions were viewed aIr products. Irwin's taxonomy attempts to classify ques~~ions in relation to the source of the answer: \:;", in other words, her mOdel, on which the taxonomy is based, describes the task involved in g,pi09 from text to answer, and therefore goes some way towards taking into account the processes involved in comprehending a text and answering Page 27 questions on it. (See page 57 for an instal1(:!e of this ~:~}~\ oharacter isti.c .•) (~ The second reason for ch.oosing to use the Ex-Q.ARt:axo:nomyis a methoqological one. The application of a single taxonomy, such as Prince's, which Ls Oiscourse Analyt:ic in orientation, might not have provided Eluffic:ient and in- n \\< disputable grounds for identify.ing questiorl ....types. A confirmation trom another souree was requil;'ed. Irwin's taxonomy constitutes the second source, having been derived (I from inter-disciplinary researoh. The application of Irwin's taxonomy was justified. Those questions "pre comprehension I' assessment 1 but stud,~nts especialily can. be made aWare of the processes, that arl~ in operation while they are interpreting text. This instruct.:i.onal aspect of Irwin's '\ ';\ model is most useful to stud~nts who need to knowwhat it is that they are being asked to do when answering comprehension questions. The Ex-QARtaxonomy uses six major categories. Essentially they are based on the compr-ehenaLon pr0gesseS that Irwin descrlbes in ,her proposed model but each process has as its input, information of different kinds and from differellt aouroee , The first five categories distinguish five different kinds of information and the sixth category relates to what Irwin calls t,he met.acognitive processes. These processes are identified as the strategies 1:'eadersuse while reading I and are not often used in the .formulation of compr-ehens Lon questions in th:ls country at pr~.fent. The five categories that were used to typify the examination questions in this study are: 1. Information deriving from pre-reading and prior knowledge ••. I) 2. Microinformation that is explicitly stated or implicit in the text. 3. Integrative information that is explicitly stated or iJIlplicitin 'the text. 4. Macroinformation that is explicit 01,\,iro,plicitin the text. 5. Elaborative information. category 1 'questions, .i.ethose which fall into the pre- reading, prior knowledge category, may be questions on vocabulary or background'concepts. They are described by .,' Murray (1985) as the ki,nds of questions that "require students to relate what is in the text to what they already know about the t.opic." Question 7 (1'.E.D.1989!3 - see ,Appendix A page 3) illustrates this kind of question clearly. The question reads: Page 29 The writer refers to West Berlin as being an "enclave" .(line 2:3). In our media the term is often used with reference to Walvis Bay. What does this word mean? EXaminers in phr(ising this ;straightforward vocabu.lary \\ question were at pains to relate the word "enclave" to the candidates' prior ],ocal geographical knowledge. Microinformation (category 2) which is expiicit, is inform- ati.on that is genera.ted from individual idea units within each sentence. An idea unit is seen as a word or group of words, and this idea u.nit makes up a meaningful phrase (sometimes called a "chunk"). One or more of t'h;:~se meaningful phrases "{-touldmake up a .serrcence, Microinforlnation is therefore information that is dar': :Ce from intra-sentential relati,onships or i.dea··units (chuu~_l.;J) ILo within sentences. Implicit microinformation is to be. found in lexical .9r phrasal ambiguity or connotation. Explicit II microinformati('ln is required from candidates in question 11 (T •.E.D.1989:4 - see Appendix A page 4) in which candidates are asked to identify the plural form of the word ·'gf'affito". Question 12.2 (T.E.D. 1989:5 Appendix A page .5) which asks candidates to explore the connotations of "u.toplan" would be categorized as an implicit lnicro- information question. The integrative inforlnation (category 3 in the taxonomy) that is explicitly stated would include anaphoric reference Page 30 o (but not ellipsis) ar~d explicitoconnectives. Implici·t integrat,ive information consists of implicit connectives, ellip$es and what Irwin terms "slot-filling inferences"-. They are defiped by Ir"lin (1986:38) as "those inferences that fill in important missing aspects of the given situation." The itslots" are determined. by tIle situatioll and f01rowing Fillmore (1968) and I required to "fill in missing aspects of ,the given situation" such that "the stinle" is interpreted as being the result of the canning acti vities';",in.l?oh~e:rey.This operation on the \' '\ \ , \ ' \ \ part of the candid~ce)/ woii.lli~.... .~.~~- s101::...£il,1ing inference. ,,' . Macroinforniatiol1 that. is expl~~cit (category 4) consists of explicitly stated main ideas, ~~'l:P1ic:!-tsummaz-Les Or organization of material into sub-heads. For. instance, the term "TWA - For the BESr:(/OfAmerica" encapsulates What the advertisement (T.E.D.1989:a - see Appendix A page 8) Page 31 )' attempts to spell out explicitlY. I, Macroinformatio~ that is implicit would be fo~hd in main "\-,'\ ideast summaries and diagrams that do not explicitly announce themselves as such. Jonathan Raban (T.B.D 1989:4 see Appendix A page 4) tries to capture the quality of Quatar as being Itahandsome treasury of filth" and prC'yides,. in this phrase what is, in effect, a summary i 'though implicit, of \'lha'r the passage has been about. Information' that:.;,requires the .r~ader to make inferences not necessarily il"ltEandedby the author, Irwin has tlarnted"Elaborative il~formatiol}u. This kina of information constitutes category 5 of Ix-win's taxonomy. tt, in effect, includes information that a reader may gain :Crom making pr.edictions l::Ifvf.trious kinds, elaborations based on prior knowledge, the mental images a reader may call up and the affec.,;tiveresponses a C:,'·:'i>, reader may feel dUring the course of reading. QUestion 5 (,r.E.D. 1989:3 - see APpendix A page 3) asks candidates what the change of a name like "Schlossbrucke" to the "Marx- Engels Bridge" tells of the communist takeover 'of East: 0 Berlin. A candidate without. any prior ~,nowiedge. <.._ of the tendency of :modern political parties toC",'Jlour Political \~ figures by naming public works after\them,!'would have (ti/ difficu1ty with a question such as this. Explicit versus Implicit in \J:rw'in,s Taxonomy. \~ Irwin's taxonomy requires that questions be classifie'r1 according to whether they are IMPL!CtT or EXPLICIT, but the questio.n Of whether information is to he considered 'ks implicit or explicit is a difficult one. y"'C"~o_'c' It 'nafbee~. adtft",ssed by, amol1qst"the,,", 018011 (l$17h' Cha;/~?(1982)~\Mazzie (1987) and Enkvist (1990). Enkvist 'Ii (19,~O~12)su:mmariz&E?i"'the established linguistic approach too {i~ the question by referring to n." ••• formally descr.i.ba~le, ~nd . I : " . '~' ,-_ II thus tangible, cohesion markers that can be heard or se$n on '-~" "\ the surface of discours\'1;~"or text.".. This'.' view'::'Is:"similar'.'..' 0 ll_~to /":\ ' the one Irwin has adbpte.d :i..nthe construction of her tiaxonomy, For exalIlple, Irwin (1986:144), in axplicating ,; implicit. and eXplicit integrative. information in her .Ex:'QAR taxononlY, aSserts that "•.. questions about explicit integrative information as)c,,about .anaphoric r.t,eferences and eX~?licit connectives that .ere stated directgy." " " In the classification of items in this study, eXplioitness is seen as occurring on/the surface of the texts. In characterizing implicitness, !diin drat;;s on the terms "textually implic:j,.;tinfornlation" ami IIsqriptally ',i)l\Plic~,t ~/.,r c :( information . These terms are Pearson and Johnson t s '.<> " () (1978), the former taken to mean "information impl~ed:in the text" and the latter "information already in t.he mind pf the reader." This characterizatiop raises the question, of info:t,'~,,:iation status. Brownand Yule (1984;179ff) in their treatln~nit of information...structul'e r&'ise a number of object.ions as to how " Ugivennessto has been vie1ITedin th~ lit~l"ature. prleflYi(~/,i: ~\_ _ \) ' __ c_ _ \\ reviewing t.he work done by' Halliday (1967)I Chafi~ P,976'jI, ,./ r \\<-: _jl F'age 33 ClarJt & Clark (1$~77)and Sanford and Garrod (19S1), Brown ';:(:-i::~ . ': and Yule (1984:189) conclude with nothing better than a supposition that it is the exploitation of •• "re9ularities (such as thP..1useof the definite and indefinite article) in con'" texts. of c;iiscourse which allows U[S to assess the in~ormation status attributed to an entity by speakers an I' The context of discourse lv-hichallows us to assess the "giV'enness" of a particular piece of inforn"iation in this investigation~is the discourse of the comprehension tests I). ,'t.hemselves. In later chapters t when the terms are used, an expJ,anation is 9i ven for treating a p;articular item as either "implicitU or "explicit". Tables 3 and 4 below illustrate ,howall the questions in n both elcaminations were ola,(Ssitied in terms of the categories in the taxonomies developed by Prince and Irwin. Table 3 THE TAXONOMIES APPLIED - Analysis of Paper 1.1989 :1 Prince's Entities Irwin's Categories Brand-new IUnused IInferrablC81 Evoked J Evoked Prereading & Prior I Micro I Micro Integrative Integrative Macro Macro IElaborative Textual Situ"tiolllll Knowledge Explicit Implicit Explicit Implicit .Explicit Implicit Question Number ! I I II ------.--- J, 1 "' 1\) I * I 2 .. I I .. 3 .. I '" I J 4 .. • 5 .. Jo I .. 6 .. I I .. 7 I I .. .. , 8 '" 4< '" I T T 1 1 T '" 9.1 .. _l _l t t I I I .. . I I I I ~ f 'I I" ~~ I : __ : : "" : I I I It) ..• .. , 11 .. I .. .. I I 1(; 12.1 '''::::;'''. .. ." I I ,. 12.2 .. .. 13 .. .. ;~, I 14· .. I 1 1 "' J' 15 : I .. I I I .. .:. 16 '" " 17 ... 1 1 ... 18 .. :';: G I .. 20 ,J 1 1 .. I \ . '" .. I .. '" - 1 \' 21.2 ...oJ. .. 1\ [. ::.: .' 1 -- J ... ; \,. 21.3 '" '~~ '" I .. 23.1"0 ,* I I ...... 23.2 ', ..:-.,...... ,. I 1 I 23.3 ... I .. 23;ol 4> '" , 24.1 '" , ! j 24.2 o . I I ... /) * .' 24.3 • ... _j~ J~ __ L ~____" 24.4; I ... I • ____;_ J :3Lt/j' Table 4 ANALYSIS OF PAPER '2. 1990 ,,' Prince's Entities Irwin's Categories .1=-' _. 's" Unused Inferrables Evoked W· . .• Prereeding & Pri01 '~~.ro Micro IIntegrntivel Intcg.ative Macro Macro Blaboratlve 1-==:. Situational • ~6wledge ) r..~licit Implil)it Explicit:' I ht';:Uc,t ~Iicit Implicit ~:JO;~: -;»: •. j ~·I I 1.1 I I I .. I II ...... 1.2 C'I I - I I .. / ...r >I> I" 2...... - ... I 3 I I -.. 4 .. .. 5 ... .. - 6 .. - .. 7 I) ;: - 8 ,... - ;; ... - - 9 ~ - Co 10.r ... I I I I .10.2 I J . -;;L~"=-' .. c 10.3 '.\..: _b~''/r.-'-~- I I) 'I! 11 ... .. '" i) 12 .. ..., ... 13.1 '..... , * - 13.2 .. · ! .1 .. ... 14.1 -;~ .. 1 14.2 I '" 15.1 ~ .. '" 15.2 .- ... 15.~ '" I II .. 16.1 -0« I 16.2 '" .. -... 1--45.3 • I ~ I TIl I ... J ~.. 17.2 I I I ...... ;: 18 I I I ... 19 I I I" -.. 20! '1' '" ... 21 ...... I I 22 -- J. I '" I s!) Page 36 THE MARK!NG M:EMORANQ,A AND. CANDIDATES' •RESPONSES. Classifying the questions according to the taxo11omies outlin$d above', proved, in the case of certain questions, to be problematic. For instance'ic.princ¢·s taxonomy was designed to identify new and old information in discourse and is based on " .•. discourse entities in a discourse model (that) are represented by NPs in a text •.• " (pri:rice 1981:235). Not all questions asked.of candidates require of them the recov~~y of entities in prince's sense. How-questions or (~ .\ i\_., questi~:r~swhich ask candidates to liexplcd.n" some textual ,', phenomenonneed to be in.terpreteq as InfC:l:\rable ant.i ti@s• In 1,1 order to specrfy what 'the Inferrable enti'ties Were, it was necessary to use the lnarki,ngmemo2;;anda(see APRerldicesBand ;/i D) from which examiners ..·.workeo...and certain answers (from the candidates' scripts. The Elabol"'ative category in Irwin f S n 0 taxonomy is a very broad one, defined as containing all, those infel:'ences npt necessarily intended by the writerc\ As it is difficult in some instances to knowWhat thfl, writer intended the reader to infer, it Wasnecessary to use candidates' inferences in the answer$they provided, ,in order to make decisions about whether a p~rticular quest.lcm \\ was elaborative or, $~, a m~cro"'implicit qtua$;tj.on. -. .t'~1' o--;~~_. ,:~.') . ","_ Both pr9b1ems referred to a~ove had ,to be approached by "_,.\\1\ taking certain candidates' ,:L1esponsesinto account. In this I the advice of'fered by Aldersor (1984:23) was taken. He suggests that "it wo~ld seem to make sense to deliberately select extreme cases for investigation, rather than examining average or normal cases." since the examination of marked:tY dif·ferent responses was likely to illuminate the dirferp"1ces! ' in the nature of the response better than average cases might, distinction-level answers were contrasted with failing answers, when candidates' responses" were examined. They are quoted sic passim. Transvaal Education Department policy prevented actual extamination numbers being used as this could reveal the " 1\ identity of canqidates, so responses are classified as either d.istinction level ('1' for top) or failing (B for bottom answers). The numoer'before the T or:a reflects the <;' candidate's relative position in terms of over-all performance: 1'1'i~ the 'candidate who fared )Jest, 2T second best and 1B worst, 2B second worst and so on. The question 'of whether markers of the ~cripts were "able to distinguish between distinction-level and fq.iling answers is not considered. In the opinion of this investigator more than SUfficient controls existed durirl.gthe assessment of answers for scores to be considered consistent and accura12e. certain selecteg. can4idates' responses and the examiners' markipg memoranda were used in conjunction with the questions whenever there was dQubt. about a J;fa,rt.ibuJ,'~ 'classifLcacdon .. /'Thetables on pages 19,20,34 and 35 identify the difficult and easy questions and place them in categories. The six gllestions that most candidates failed were of the Inferrable Poge 38 type and required the·recovery·of implicit or elaborative information, whereas the easi~~ questions demanded the recovery of;.;textllallyevoked, explicit or taught information c/ (see page 110.) But whether it waS the kind of information that had to be accessed Dr whether it 'WaS the syntactic organization ot: the (i information th~~ caused candid.ates difficulty, is the . \~\ question ansv~fred··more fully in Chapters 3 and 4. Page 39 CHAPTER THREE .• In this chapter, reasons are provided as ~o Why the six most difficult questions have been classified as they have and the syntactic complexity of each is e~,?-mined.Each of the items was selected because the majority of candidates scored a failing mark ie below 40%. The discussion will incorpor.ate-; 1. The reasons for each item's having been classified as a particular question-type in terms Of the taxonomies outlined in Chapter 2; 2. comment on the syntactic complexity of the 'questions and the text-parts fr~m which the que~tions w~~e deriVed; 3. Judgements based on 1 and 2 above about the nature of the difficulty encountered by candidates in each item. THE APPROACH .TO SYNTACTIC COMPLEXITY AND READING DIFFICULTY. i: The coropJVexity of a sentence is seen (as was exp'lained in Chapb,;r 1:13 ff) in terms of the IIstructureE,)thc{ increase a reader's processing load.n Perera (1984:287ff) cites evidence to justify hypothesizing three potential SOurces of grammatical difficulty in reading. "First., r~;~dlng is likely \c;".,,~/ to ,be harder when the grammatical structure of a sentence is not easy to predict ••. Second, reading is likely to be Page 40 harder when a sentence does not diyide readily into optimal segments for processing .•• Third, reading is likely to :Qeharder when a heavy burden is imposed Jl short-term :m.emoryt" This third condition is more - 0 ) general than~~~~hefirst twofand instances of it woUld include -, .,~, sUch construct~ons as those that demand a reader hold in working memory verbatim words and phrases unt~.l the clause or sentence is completed. Other ins."'·ailceswould be the "interrupting construction" f wher~\,.say, the subject and ,- verb might be interrupted by an intervening phrase or clause; or a long subject noun phrase.; or an elliptical C:. construction that requires ~ reader to hold exact words in memory until the~f are recovered from elsewhere in the text. The questions themselves, and texts from which the questions were derived, are examined in t~rms of·)these three possible sources of syntactic complex~ty. ': THE MOST" DIFFICULT ITEM! QUESTION 3. OF THE ~98§ PAPER. Candidates were required to read;!?!passage frc)m TIME -I! magazine whiCh contrasts East and West Berlin. (See Appendix A page 2). l·.Qn~stion 3 (T.E.D.1989:3) reads: Explain what you think the write~ intended when he .remarks, "whateVer may beCOme of 'the sickle, the hammer can certainly be heard ring;i,tlgacross East Berlin ..... (line 2$). Both "the sickle" and ttthehammer" are in Princels terms ItI9W and Unused. entities. However the writer of the pa.Ss~ge , Page 41 assumes that t,he reader knows that these are the symbols of (, "a Communist country" (line 25) ,and answers must; mention the symbolic meanings Of the terms., .These terms, the e>.nblems.of • . ~-, . () industry .or,agriculture are therefore INFERRABLES (See Table 3 page ~4.) I) Candidates needed to identify these as symbals in order to Provide any sort .of answer to the more complex question of what the writer intended by using them the way he did. e uriidate 40T wrote an answer deservfng full marks: The sickle and tbe hammer are symbolic of communism, .of a secialistic seciety which is restricte<;l and drab. East Berlin is part .ofthe communist rUle. In line 26 the writer uses a play en words and' conveys the thought that .the authorities are making changes t,o building structures in E Berlin. The hal1L~erin .this cent ext refers to a hammer that a workman WQuld use in constructing something (ie the new buildings). "Whatever may become of",the sickle'! is an implication that ,the strong-hel.d .of communism has or is to be Loosened by the 90nstruction .of nelvf modern bUildings and the attempt at intr.oducing a nevi',lively li~estyle in EBerlin. A candidate (l~B) was awarded no marks at all despite having captured some of the sense of lithe hammE:!rcan certainly be ,{ heard ringing across East Berlin" l!:henhe wrote: The East Ge~man authorities are helping improve living concHtion·s. '~~>-...... What this'ca~diclate failed to do was to identify and mention -c- (t the Inferrables in his answer. :In l~win's terms this question would be classified as an INTEGRATIVE IMPLICIT question (See Table 3. .page 34). It requires the candidate to ufil;i1in important missing aspects of the given situation" (Irwin,1.986:38). The implicitn.ess lies in the connotations attached to "sickle" and "hammer" Page 4? that' a reader must; recover and mention. tn 'this Lnsbance the " hammer had to be construed both symbolically (Of communism>f~ {I // and 1iterally (as an instrument used "Ln building or other /1 industr ies)" z: 2. The form of the rUbric is not an"unusua'l, one. It is (::' imp~rative in mood, and right-l?ranching in terms of clausal organization. According to Quirk et al. (1985:1039) "Right ..... c: " branching clauses are the easiest to comprehend 0 ga The matrix clause is followed by two noun clauses and an adverbial clause, pefore the,quotation from the passage \'l begins. The second noun clause is empedded in the fir,s,ltput o . (l in a way that did not provide student?, at. n'fatriculation - ~ leveE with much difficl.l1ty in trying • 1:Ig, predict what mj.ght. \I follow the first. The s~(pe:t\prdinatenoun clause "What you think." is deletable and the embedded clause "What the writer intended" is predictable enough in an item of this sort. The fa~lliar phrasing' o~ this/first part of the rubric makes it easy to segment, and this easily segmentabl~ arrangement of clauseR did not place too ;heavy':"aburden on the WOt'king ,~.", ~., ) ,II memory of s'cudents at :matriculation level. The quotation used in the rUbric is only part of the full sentence (lines 26-30). The full sentence/IIcan be pracketed r/ to illustrate th~ clauses and the embedding. Page 43 4 l'.' 4 1 [Whatever may become' of the sickle,} .•[the hammer can 2 certainly be heard ringing across East: Berlin, [which is ,3 embarked on a building spree [that will last until the end 321 of the c~ntury.)]] Clause 3 is embedded in clause 2, whi(.::hin turn is embedded in clause 1. clause 1, the mat.rix clause (the hammer can certainly be heard nlnging acJ;"ossEast Berlin) is fronted by clause. 4, a UtlX.'d..vel';salconditional-concessive clause'l· (Quirk \ et ;~l 1985:1101.) and both the embedding and the frorybing can II overload wo:rking memory. Clause 4 is a universal cqhditional 1 Ii since it indicates "a free choice from any nUlnber 1lof I:;londitions".The concessive implication can be seen in the ",._.' inference that "even i.f nothing hecomes of the sickle, the hammer can still be heard ringing across East Berlin." What is interesting here is that the inference, that needs to be made to recognize the concessive implication in the w1hatever ...clause, was made, even by ,the weakest candidates. Candidate 3B was awarded no marks for his answer, yet it displays plainly an understanding of the conditional- concessive nature of the initial clause. His answer reads: The writers telling '\lsthat whatever may .become o:f this country whether \\peace o,r destruction, the rest of Berlin will know a,'lpoutit. ' ...d'd t h '....t \\d +-':. .. ''$ :\·h ' . f " Th.,a.s can ].a,ce .a~!.c"Ci~:'~l:"j).·y~~e.J.re\\~ oa.oe a ,pond~t].ons by his Use of· iI~~!"!~\tha1"peace' 'or aestru(:ltion" and has r:epresent- ,< . /1'\'; . '/ -_ - : _. - - ) -_ /f j:m.pl,iQ~tion I[by hin\ ed the concessll~~e~ II own,.. use of a , ,Whatever- jJ I) o Page 44 II clause. His, answer was awarded no marlcsbecause he has failed to' interpret ~!sickle" and' "hammer"as communist symbols. He seems to have construe"'! the sickle as re- presenting peace and the hammeras representing destruction. Another very weak.candidate, whose answer displays a recognition of/the concessive i1npliQa1;~onin the initial clause was 6a. Sh,=wrote: I thirik that the writer intended to, make us (the r.eadel':s) 9,waretl1!lt even thougftlEast Berlin is a isoratedJ2ommunist country there is still activity which can ,be he"ard,from th~ other side of the W.all. (The activity is the, ringing of a bell which is embarked on a buildin<;J,spree.)_ .'~\j' ,-:.-' Her use ofL~·eventhough", e!>.:-preSsesher inferring the concE3ssi'''eelement in the Whatever-clar.se and, she, like 3~,! has been given no credit for this. She" too, has .failed point out the significance of the s.ickle and hammeras Communists:l',lubol§1. o 3. r'n trying to account for/tl~e difficulty of this it~m, then, one must repognise th~'?lt«" neither the embedding, t nor'. the '\:::,;, ?} ..r 0 - fronting of the conditional-concessive Whatever-clause, caused an increase .ip the reader's processing load. The 1\ \_i potentially difficult syntax was not the reason most candidates failed the question. 'rhe reason has to dO with (, "hammers"and "siCkles". If one sees "context" as Sperber and Wilson do (1986:15) as a "psychological construct, a sub"'set ilClf the hearer's (reader 0 s) assumptions about the I, ~ worldil, then readers of this question were Unable to interpret this utte'rance because tliey were Unable to Pa~e 45 D construct a cOT.(textin which "hammer"and n~-;:pkleu"were'part of a Communist1f'lOrld.",TheJ;eare necessary conditions of ',\ context-con~truc).1~r'r \;inc;lcpendentof 'the syntax of ab , " // , i\,f' utterance, whieh" 1.{ 'hot met, .c:::j'!~II I'" '\ THE SECOND MOST DIFFICULT· ITEM: QUES'.lC£Q;N:.:..o.-=:::.-.::=<=--==-Ii -" pAPER. Candidates were asked to re,ad the opening lines (.:·,~i' !,'pteinbeck I s Can.neryRoW. (See Appendix A p::..ge.5. ) L Question 16 (T.E.D.1989:6) instructs canq~dates to focu~~ their attention on Steinl>eck's d('3scription (1ines,;l.7-21) of , ~ the canneries On Cannery RoWthat "dip their tailS into the bay." steinl>eck goes on to say that The f:;i.gureis advisedly chosen, for if the canneries dipped their mouths into the, bay the can;ne¢!-,sardines which emerge from the other end woUldbel met~phorically at least, even more horrifying. <::~ " <:" l?al".~tone of question 16 asks candidates what they can deduce s', I.: from this remark, of his attitu.de to canned sardines. The deduction that. candidates needed to make requires an INFERRABLE that the examiners assume' is recove.rable from some item or items within the quotation. "\, r;.:.: ....:...--:;..- In order to deduce that steinbeck does not like sardines, a candidate would need to infer this from steinbeck ~s use' ,If the flhrase ile"V~:qmore horrifying. II " .' ~~~\~\~ '. . . . :- , . :, An answer (7T) £hat. was at.,rardedfull mat'ks reads: o ) ;, Canned Sara;~t-leSdisgust him, he ,thinks tbat they are dirty and ·gmelly and no better than an animal's excre'cion. !.!" The three attributes mentioned and the .tinal Nl? of the answer f.~t·e in:ferrable. 'Candidate f'.i' indicd:tes in her answer the source of the inference: r)SteinbeSkviews canned sardines with dis~as~e as dan '1b~seen from his comment "even more horrJ.fYJ.ng." (I 50B appears not to have identified agent, patient or instrument, at all in the following answer: The sardines are exposed to horrifying sights before they are canned. Therefore the quality of the sardines is poor. The question, since it involves filling in aspects of a particular situation, in thi$. case identi.fying the writer's attitude to sardines., can, in Irwin I S terms, be labeled an !NTEGRATIVE UMPLICIT question. part two of question 16 requir.es candidates to explain what S't.einbeckmeans when he says, "The figure is advisedly chosen". Steinbeck supplies the ansWer when be explains ,ij c/.. _. "_.! th(~t his cho Lce of image is a considered one, for to imagine carmeries defecating WOUld be even more horrifying. Unless candidates are able to recove~ the image Of sardines disappearing into a tail and emerging from a moutb, they would not be able to oomment on the advisability of the use of such an "image. Having to.comment on the Use of the entit.y /;; "fi91;~re"isp in c:~ffect,having to supply reasons for its use, and these reasC'lnswould be INFFJRRA13L:e:S. /1 j' II o Page. 47 .An answer by 7T makes'clea:r the nel?d to oonstruct the image o in order to make' the rea,sons for its use clear. The personification of the factories or the metaphor of comparing the factqries to animals is very effective. He uses the image of sardines going into ;the tails ana coming out the mouth rather than the image of sardines gOing in the mouth and out the rl?ar end which would be more horrifying. Candidate 50B w.as unable to c~nstruct\ the necessary image. He 'WrQte~ The figure tha'c is cho~len is that of the person to take them out of the boat.., ~~heI, sardine$ mustn't get a fright • Constructing mental images, Of the kind involved in this question, ,~is,within th,«aframework of an Ex-QAR taxonomy, the construd~ion of ELABORATIVE information. Once the il\'F\ge has been constructed however, the Clland~dateneeds '\to integrate this information. with his attitudes to how polite the image is and then infer that the figure is advisedly chOSen to avoid vulgarity. 2. The first question follows the normal pattern of Wh- questions in that the Wh-element functions as object of the sentence and the usual inversion of S\\~j ect and Verb is maintained. The second question is imperative in mood with three riqnt- branching subordinate Clauses. (See comment on right- ,branching clauses on page 42). Neither the first nor the second question provided aven the weakest candidates wit'}"l problems of interpretation. Most begin their anSWers with ".( can deduce that •••" or "He means that •••Of. Certain ,answers (I /, PL19e: 48 o tocthe first quest.ion are more to the point arid simpJy announce "He doesn t t like :;;ardines•." The sentence from the text to which the, two questio~!t,,-!,e.feris complex in the J) sense that it.may increase a rea,deri s p:rocess;i,ngload -.Not " 0 only can" it make considerable demands on a reader's wOrking ,;-) memory, but ;itis n9t easily segmentable and certain clauses are di~ficult to predict. \' , . 0 ~ What demands are made on the reader's working m~m6ry are caused by the multiple degrees of embedding in the sentence. The matrix clause is followed by ~hree subordinate claUses, two of Which are embedded';in a superordinate clause" :Bracketing reveals th~ degree of embedding: 123 (The figure is advisedly chosen [for [if the canner~e$ 3 2 dipped their mouths into thp)baYJ the canned sardines 4 !J 4 2 (which emerge from the other end] would be, o 21 metaphorically, at leaJt, eVen more hor;rifying.]J Both the if-clause and the which-clause are embedded in the "0;. <, superor -~.nate for-clause. (I The if-clause is in initial pOSition in the· for-cl(~use and \.~s left branching, whereas the relative clause nests in medial position in the for,-clause. The sentence is unusual in that it Violates the "•••dominant ./ tendency of syn.tactic structure th~:e'the greatest depth of subordination is-.~eached in the final part of the sentence." ('\i (Quirk et al 1985: 1039). The greatest'fe~1tb Of subordin~tion -'~:,._...·_i:.ll is reached medially in this. sentence. The.re are a numbe:t'of ways in which this sentenee might overload a reaaer's working memory. "The canned sardines", tqhH~his the subject of the adverbial. for-clause"has to be held in working l'nemoryunt,il the very end of the sentence in order to be l'inked to the verbal element gf the 'clauSe "wou1.q. be .••hOl1rifyingoil TWO 'iconstructions interrupt this operati~'rl.\.The effort of holding the SUbject in.memory' is 1} _j/' c" '"', i\Z/ " like~=t9,~/be increased by the interrupting" which"'clause and the adverbial phrc;t.se~p.ich,i.nterrupts the verbal element is \' followed by an intensifier before the reader finally 'gets to "horrifying". These interrupting constructions. are clearly a .potential source of difficulty in the segmentation of the sentence. This is particularly noticeable in the for-claUse. The conjunction is separated from the sUbject()by the conditional if-plau,se ~nd the ~upject in turn is separated from the verb by th'~ adj ecti val which-cla\.lse. Again, the for-clau.se is not an easily predictable one. Given the incompl~te sentence if The Canned sa:r.-dines'tolould be ....II I most re.aders would attempt. to find a complelnent of some kind to fill the slot. :rhe adverhial "metaphorically at least" is an improbable candidate and theref9re difficult to predict. other than providing readers with possible difficulties in memory stqrage, segmentation and predictability, the sentence insists on the recovery of an entity that the writer, treats as given but to tnany candidates was.new. The problem is exacerbated by .,its being the head noun of'·the "l main.clause, viz. "The figure",'"' Steinbeck's use of the definite article ind:!.cates that he U$,esthe noun inc question as a "given", Few c~ndidates recognised it 'as denoting "a figure ot speech" and, by implication, t;he metaphor uSEid in the preceding sentence. liThe fi~ure" has to be recognised as .a n\etaphor for a. candidate to be. a.ble to; explain its meaning. , The t·:i.rst part Of the queotion( viz. "What'can you deduce from thi$ (the lines quoted) of his attitude to canned sardines?1I had to be al1,sweredhy mention being made of steinbeck's distaste for sardines. and by some reference to his use of the phrase "even more horrifying". Thel'Second 1\ part of the question, viz. "Explain :vrl:\athe means when he (.'> says, 'The fig'ure is advisedly chosen.''', had certain distinction-lev~l candidates completely bai 1. 17'1' wrote: He means that it is positioned well, and it is appropriately placed for What must be done - it's j usc right. "The fi94;rell in this answer is interpreted a,s being a Ii functional entity of some,kind Z:'~lyingon pc)sitioning or placing for ),'ts effectiveness I perhaps the factory'. A similar ans't'ler was supplied by another disti.nction-level candidate (:to'r) who wrote: The pr ice and amount of sardines is chosen with caza and knowledge, with all consideratilons ~nd sugg'estions taken into aocount. The two answel;s are similar in t.hat both reflect the. failure Fage 51 of 'the writers to interpret "figure'! as a f'i9ure of speech. Both have interpreted "figure" in its literal senses, 17'1' as some physical entity such as a factorY.,l;>erha19s,and. loT as a. "'\ price or amount. ~~either of these distinction-level ,\ candidates has US\7dthe word "l1,letaphqiically" at all in his interpf;~~t1.on • 3. TWopOSSible reasons based on the syntax of this item may be advanced for this omission by candidates who, l,n other questions, were awarded eoccellent marks. The first·' is that the phrase "metaphorically, at least," is an interrupting phrase and impedes a reader's search for the' complementation that must follow olwouldbe•.• II. A .fast \ reader in his qUick search for verb"'domplementation ~ay miss interrupting phrases such as this. RelateQ, to this supposition is' another. Phrases that art:: difficult·to predict, as l'metaphorically, at least.\~ is" may be purpopelY .) glossed over and not noted by fast: readers. Fast readers may well adopt a strategy that instruc'ts them to' get to p.lt:'edic:tableelements in the text as quickly as possible ~ This strategy would allow' fast readers mere hypothesiS 'I cOll1firmiationin less timl9 and wouldC;gosome way towards i.' acc\oun~=ingfor these distincti6n-level candidates not no,t:\c.ingan intet'rupting const.ruccf.on, Ths'se.cond possible reason that these candidates failed to include the l7eference ~\\ to mE.\t.aphorin their answers is that they took the question to meanthat only the main clause had to be explained,. Only th~lmain clause is quoted in the second part of the D o Page 52 ,'\ question'~ It seems l.,"nli~elY;~hat candidates suclf as th '\ ' What needs to be noted, however, in'; "it;tl(;~1tiptingto explain () i-I ):i~hedifficulty in this question, U~ ~!h,at.in terms of the c: ! "taxonomies, the answerI like the anSWE'rto the mOf'Jt l difficult question, depends on the candidates' ;r(,~coveringan I;nferrable I.\·~:idintegrating imp~icit information to arrive at ~.1. an apPF9P:t,:'iateinterpre"l:fition. But it is not only in. this respect Yi_.}y similar to the most difficult question. candidates, unab'Le to recover the image of canneries disgorg;ing sardines, were, like candidates faced with a question nbout sickles and hammers, unabl.e to construct the approprl.ate context 'whichhad to inClude canneries ~ardines. This was a necessa~y condition of ·cotltex.t.. construction (see pages 44 and 45) " independent of the sy~tax of the tE1jxt""£""~.yhichwas constructed by examiners, but not ):jy capdidat:.es unablp. to answer the question. //;:0;;:::~-·;::~:-:;_-:::::,--:.-; >;..'/ THE THIRD MOST bIFFICULT ITEM: QUESTION 9 OF THU989 PAPER. \/ This quet}tion~ like the most diffioultjl is based on the TIME mag~zine article that conj:::rast~East and West Berlin. (See App~ndi~ A i.··}tl...~e2). r··· 1. Question 9 in two part$. The quest~pn reads: The West Germananalyst rlspeaks qf the 'l1:)i9.effort" (line 37) being made to\~:mprovethe conditions of life in East Berlin. p It Ji Page 53 9.1 Wha't"stylistic, criticism may be levelled against his use of the word 'big' in this context? 9 •.2 supply a: more suitable word with wl:lichto replace it. '.) Candidates were expected to say that.the word ":big" as uSed in this context had little to commend it as an adjective, that its m.eaning is vague, that it is cl~ched,'. ' '" overworked or tired. candidates wno sugl3'estedwords like "sustained" or "concertedI' to (replace ,,"big"f were q,warderlfull markS. Candidates Were expected to comment on an attribute rather than the entity "a big e'ffort'~t which in ,Prince's terms "' wou.ld be a Textually Evoked entity recoverable from "the face-lift" in the preceding lines "•••Erich Honecker hopes that the face-lift will alter East Berlin's image as the drab socialist sistef of the glamorouf?,.,glittering West." In !in.,: o being asked to comment on the effectiveness of the attri:bute :) however, candidates needed to draw on information not available at all in the text itself and for 'tl:1is reason the l) answer must be seen as INFERRABLE. Candidates may have been drilled into heli~ving that the word "big" ought to be avoided, at all cos1:;/s,bU.t,in order to ! replaCe the Word with another, some infer.ence is necessary and the attrIbu'te can therefore also be JSeen as an INF'ERRABl.JE. Most certainly, when a candidate is asked to fill in some slot (in this instance ,bythe re1ll9:yal.of the word "big") the ':." \ . ' , -.,,_1 question is almost by definition a slot"'filling inference in Irwin's t~r1ll9or an INTEGRATIVE IMPLICIT:question-type. Page 54 criticism of a writer's stylistic use Of a word should be seen as an ELABORATIVE que.st;ion,since it involves consideration'\of the writer's purpbse, or as Irwin (1986:78) puts it.,flanalysing the reasoning used- by the author." A number of candidates did not question the stylistic use of "big" but questioned the truth or apcuracy of the term~ Such a candidate was 2B who wrote: East Berlin is relativelY,smal1 to the West,and,t:tC'bi9 effort" need NOT be made to improve conditions because the count.ry is already one of t.he,most beautiful in Europe. This candidate, did not offer a 'Wordto replace "bigu• Candidate 2B either did not kn.owwhat Ustylistic" meant or chose t.oignore it. 2. Both parts of the question are syntactically straight- forward an~ provided candidates with no difficUlty of interpretation. The Q-element in part 1 of the question is placed in initial position and fUnctions as the subject of the sentence. The second part of the question is, like the two most difficult items, imperative in mood and not unfamiliar in comprehension tests of this kind. In order to be awarded full marks for 9.1, answers had to mention that "big" is clich~d and in the context of the analyst's remark has little meaning. In answering part 2 of the question, candidates suggested a variety of replace- ments. The marks awarded for these answers depended on what examiners considered "good" words ie what examiners considered a more suitable word.that in some way took into Page 55 ~; accoun~ the context in Whicn,the remark was made. Thus a replacement for "big" such /£s "great" was only awarded 50% whereas "determined" or OIistainedll were seen as warranting (I full marks. In order to select a replacement word which was .worth full.l'<1arksI readers had to relate "a big effort" to ',_,\l the .~'face-lift" mentioned in line 32, since it is the face- lift that the West German ahalY$t is trying to explain. The explanation by the West German .analyst was not misinterpreted by candidates. The clause pattern in that part of the sentence relevant. to the answer is an s V 0 A pattern and has not increased the reader's processing load unduly, since candidates' couU:l conceivably have answered this, question correctly without having to understand the meanin~to::.:::._.~, of the sentence. 3. i.'.ACcourttingth~!\, for the difficulty of this item in syntacticlerms is difficult. The important point to note is that although the question at face value appears to be very different from the two most difficult questions, it neVertheless does, like them, demand from the candidates the consnruct Lon of a context (f:;teepages 44" and 52). The context would incorporate the kind of effort that needs to be made when a city is undergoing a nface-liftll; building operations that are "sustained" operations. Only if candidates were able to construct this kind of context, could they be expected to access a word like "sustained" to replace "big". Oifficulty of this kind of is quite independent of the syntax of the West German analyst,'s remarks about a "big \,'I Page 56 effort". THE FOURTH"MOST DIFFICULT ITEM: QUESTION 7 OF Tim 1990 PAPER. Candidates were asked to read an article from LIFE magazine on Man's ability to survive the environmental cr,1.sis. (See Appendix C page 2). 1.. OUestiot17 (T.E.D.1990:3) Was the fourth most difficult item with a difficulty index of .362. The question asks candidates to "Explain why the writer's use of the SEMICOLONa may be considered a better punctuation mark 't:ouse than a cgJnma or a full stop .••" in the lines ~re,build wood fires in steam ....heated city apartments; we k~)elQ. plants and animals around us. as if 'to maintain dil:'~ctcontact w~th our own origins; we travel long and far on weekends ••• "semicolon" g,S use.d in the rubric: is a ,;Newand unused entity ",hich is unanchored. in any. othet- entity. Candidates are requireo ,to provide a REASON for the use of this ne~, unused 1 'r , . entitYf and the re/3.sonis an INFERRABLE since no reason is recoverable from the t~xt. However, candidates who had been taught that semicolons were used "to separate different, but related concepts •••" (Appendix D page 1) would not have h~d to infer a reason at all. Others who may have been taUght, the functions of a full stop and comma may have been able to infer that the lines required some punctuation mark weaker than a full stop but stronger than a comma, Most candidates did ,tndulge in some Page 51 inferring. For instance the three ,.,eakestcandidat~s wrote: lB The use of the semicolon is to give us a longer break after each point and for us to actually think about it. Think about what he has said. 2B The w:riters use of a semicolon is that there is so many things related to on~ subject that are so important. He caIl.t,insert commas. or full'" stops because there t .ce ,so many things to say. 3B They are giving more i,;iiformationon Ii;their points and that is wha't a semicolon is used for. Classifying the question in Irwin's terms illustrates an important feature of this particular taxonomy. Earliel~ taxcnomies classified questions according to the product the ,.~- tester expected as an answer. (See Chapter ;2, page 27). In?,~r .c/ applying Irwin's taxonomy hOWeverp this part.:t'cularquestion '<_\ is seen. as an INTEGRATIVE IMPLICIT question since candidates are attempting to infer reasons that are implicit in the writer's use of the semicolDn. If the answers of the candidates were not taken into account, one might be tempted to Classify t~is question as one depending solely on prior n knowledge. This would be an oVer-?,§implification of ,the : \ , L, ',,,;:, ..;) processes)1 at work here. , 2."Again, as with the rubric of" item 3 in the 1989 papa.;, , . )\ the item is in imperatiVe mood and; in this case, is at(J. \\ instruction to explain a particular fea,t.ureof pass,age.one. Its constructidh is similar to question ;3 of the 1989 paper (the mosd: difficult question) with.,the matrix ClaUse in initial position followed by a n(jun clause, which is right- Page "SS branching and easiest to comprehend (see page 44). Although the rubric at first· glance appaaJ;'S(to be le1.lgthy and might he suspected of plaoing too great a burden' on a \\' reader's working ~amory,/c10ser sd:t;~tiny reV-$al~ that.\.the sentence is unlikef~:\ to do this. The preposi tiona,~' \\ ',' complement of the subject pI the subordinate clal.lse --__::.'-' !\ ,-;;_:;;-:- ("semicolon"), dd~s not need to be held. in a reader's t"'tl9+,kingmemoryfor any exfended period since the examiner r . ' Ie 'i iI . ., !~.~schos\~nto include a certaln amount of .redundancy i:l.'\:;-:the ",' \\ d\')mPlemerit"a better punctuation mark". Had he chosen to \' \.J oJlit it and wri r.ct;en" ••• In:lly be considered hetter than (hi$' \1 use of) .a "comma.or full stop ..• ", candidates would not. have ):It':een.. reminded i····'J...hat~he questiOn had tb do with punct.uation ~;,:-) '_ mal.i!ks,and'wou:t'd,,1iossibly pave lYadto deal with an increased \ prc'-:assing load .~\ \.~" \\ II (, A further rea.~on\'tor sustge9,~:d!rigtrrat the reader' s working v'. , memoryis not; QVel"\-extendedby the structural aj.~~atlgementof .. ..,' ~ this sen:t;.ence, is that th~ examU1ers' use 'of th~' ~hper-" <~~~//;-:~":::;:,;:..... _. \ ordinate term ~':punctli&tionmark'~,is a.lso J.iJcely to remind the" candidate that the prepositional c9:m#i.em~nt"semiOOlon" ou,ght to be topicalized in an answer. This suggestio!l is berne out by the exa.mhier·scapi talization of "semicoh n' ~' in order to draw the attention of the candidates til it, and It ,', \l th~ suggestion is further confirmed by the memoral:l~1Um s,upplied t.o markers. In it Ilsemicolonil is topicalized. It ~ ~ 0 r~a0.s: The semicolon is used 'to $eparate but related concepts •.• The. familiar s V 0 A structure of the 'subordinate clause makes it hard to .see how it might be construed as .3- structure difficult to predict •. None of the three weakest cand.].datesin the 1990 sample was in any doubt as to what was required. Their answers (quoted in 1 above, see Page 57) show an awareness of the topicalized NP and candidate 3B has attempted his own kind of end...,focus. 3. The only possible explanation that can be offered for their being awal:'dedno marks" is that they Were simply Unable to articulate good enough reasons for the writer's use of this particular punctuation mark. candidate 2B reveals an ignorance of the use of the other two punctuation //;;:>. ~ marks refe'fred.to in the question. What the candidates lacked was either a particular kind of prior knowledge as to how punctuation marks are used, or the knowledge needed to infer a precise enough answer. In a sense these responses are uninteresting'because the ;/ knowledge that the dandidates required could presumably have been taught. 1\ more il"teresting (if idiosyncr.atic) res;ponse" was 3B's. They are giving more information on thair point.s and that is what a semicolon is used for. He was given no credi~t for this answer, but tlle nature 9f it is revealing. He has not topicalize.d "semicolon" as the examiners expected candidates to, yet he cannot be said to Pag~ 60 have misunderstood the topic Of the question.l) He has devoted the whole ,000.f, i a co-ordinate clause to it. The first clause, "They are giving more information on their points", suggests that the cand.idateknows something of the use of a semicolon. If he has tried to express the sense of so~ething like "adding infor:mation ;i.npoint form" then a semicolon would :be"\n appropriate PUl1,ctuationmark to use. This candiJ~:t:ehas revealed,\llowever, an inability to assign proper reference to both the pronouns used in lines 45 and 48 (the lines referred to In the question.) He has t.aken the "we" to refer to "writers" rather than to "all of us - mankind",. and this incorrect reference ~ssignment may have been supported by the use of "write.rIS" in the question itself. That, the candidajfe has trouble assigning reference is further evidenced in ithe second clause of his answer. "~l)at" as it has lJfl>ent'~d is s'tdcUy an indete. rminate t.. reference, unless \~t hasJ been used to refer to the(;whole of \1 the preoeding clause, which is unlikely_ Ther;e\\\ are at least two pOSSibilities that one needs to )) consl.ier in trying to account for the difficulty this particu\1!arcandidate experienced. The first is 'that the rubric directed attention to lines 45 and 48 and this candidate read the full sentence from lin.!? 44 to 51. In it, he.encountered no fewer than thr4e instances of "wen and the related pronouns IluS" and "our". It is in this fifth paragraph only t;~1atthe pronominal is consistently Used in the plural. The full extract of six Palle 61 paragraphs allows for a.tleast five different antecedents of ir::~, "we';- man; many others; human be~ngs;.. ~:, mank~nd... '. . and each. person. The writer's inconsistent ~se of singular and pl~ral pronouns in early paragraphs could well be the cause of 3B's confu5,icm. "Ouru in lim~f4 and "us" in line 10 refer to "man" in,line 1 and not, as a quick reading might sqsgest, .(f to "many others" in line 3. ,j][an"and "he" (both singUlar) become "we" in the ver~:~~~extline. This inconsistent use of /~ -, singular and Plural pronouns then might be the reason that the 9andidate began his answer with "They", revealing his own confusion. The second possible reason for 3B's inability t.O assign appropriatej~~fe.rence to the "we" of lines 44 and 45 is (( ."\ either his fal1u~s..to notice the apostrophe used in the wo:rd . \ ~ "writer;5" as part. O}F the rubri.c, or his ignorance 0.£ thit; particular use of the apostrophe. He interpreted 18writer 'sIf as the "we" ot lines 44 and 45 ie as the plural of "writer". This misinterpretation can be accounted for, if one accepts the principle of "local interpretation" (Brown and Yule, 1984:59). They :maintain that "This principle instructs the hearer (reader) not to construct a context any larger than he needs to arrive at an interpretation." It is possible that 3B has used only the rubric and ,'\ paragraph five as cb-tEnetto l.nterpretthe p~o'houns. He takes "writer's" as a straightforward )?lural and confirms this interpretation by the uses of "our", "we", and "us" in paragraph five. Faf!he used a larger ,--"'-text(the ctller fiVe paragraphs) ao assign a referent".eto "writer's", he may not have ,~begt4nhis ans't','erwith "They". (j In attempting to aCC~l~rt for the difficulty mOst candidates ~- '\~~" had with this question, however, one must acknowledge that I' ~>~1.• most were unable t~:::-:.a::.rt1.culatethe conventions of basic punctuation. The top candidate (iT) failed the question with this answer: The semicolon prolongs the ,sentence and makes us realize how,desperat.~ man is to make nature a part of his life. We s~e the lengths man will go to, to experience nature in ,ti]/ferycaspect of his daily life. "1,/,. There is little doubt that this candidate has recovered the sense 0°£ the lines, and she has simply failed to account; for the use of the semicolon. This kind of inepti tUc:lE!may be the result of negligenCe on the pa~tI, of her teachers.' She needed to know how to articulate the conventions applied to // the nse of the semicolon. Neither syntactic considerations nor "coni:ext construction appear to have caused candidates ditficult.y with this question. II THE FIFTH MOST DIFFICULT ITEM: QUESTION 13 OF THE }990 ;PAPER. The question is based on a description, by George prwell, of Sheffield at night. (See Appendix C page 5.) 1. Question 13 OI the 1990 paper and question 22 \J~re of (:~) equal difficulty, both with an index. of ~373 (. Question 22 is a precis exercis~ and it is unusual for most candidates to \':::.';';;:'.:1 fail this item. A precis exercise regularly appears in paper two of the T.E.D,!"examinations and most d:mdidates in the past have had no trouble passing the item. (See item 19 of \~ the 1989 paper). A deliberate policy dec'ision was taken by the examiners in 1990, which accounts for most c.~lJdidates failing the precisf. Candidates who ignore<;i the X"'?J&'l!es.'f;to ~'f'ite.,an article for "a record sleeve were heavily pent:t.:"ized. \' T\le decision was' taken in the hope that matriculants GWuld i:~ fature be alerted to the importance of register in their ~<" c I' precis writing. Had this dacision not been taken, item 22 would'not have had a difficulty index of' ~373 and would not :"! have been considered in this stt?dY as a"difficult item. \',\ Item 13 however I which is a diff'icult item, is based on passage 3.1 of the 1990 paper (Appendix C page 5). The attention ,of the candidates is drawn to paragraph 3 of the' passage in which ,Orwell descriibes Sheffi'eJ.d at night., and they are instructed to "Examine this image•.. " The image from line 12 reads: serrated flames, like circular saws, squeeze themselves out ... Twoquestions fOllow: What do you visualise from this simile? HOYddoes the alliteration help to inten(?ifl( the sinister impression of this image? '\~ The answers to bo'ch of these questions must b~~don~idered" as ,,- Ii ' INFERRABLES.Readers are required to?imake mention of /, _', _ ' :"'; c\ entities and attributes of entities not recove:t:'~ble in-"the text other than by procl~sses of "plaus,ible rea~ohing" (Prince, 1981: 236). 'r'llemark.ing memorandum (Appendix 0 page 3) spec:ifiecias acc:eptabt.-e.,responses that mentioned "sharp, , \\ ' (, "" jagged points Of flame sp\~rtlng up around tt~i§edges" fo; thE; first question, and IIsibilani;s " which "create a hissing, maleVolept impress,ion" fq;r the second. Irwin •s taxonomy would c(,.:assifyboth these questions as ELABORATIVE in type (See Chapter 2 page 31), since both depend on the reader's creation of mental images and, \\ strictJ.,yspeaking: responses should not draw on information that LS explicit in the text. A.word;/lik.e "serrated" Which is explicitly stated had to he recovered in a form that /~ shared certairt·semantic features with "serrated" and was \~;oc-", \1 therefore only im1icit in the concept of "serratednes~~:). "Jagged" is sucl"¥/aform. il. ... . Another elaborat~on requ~red from readers ~f they ,.,ereto respond appropriately to the second ~estion,~\ is the mental image croated by sibilants of a w·hissing" or "rasping" sound. Candidates wotlld als.o need to relate sibilance to malevolence of some kind and nothing explicit in the text prompts them to do so, other than the word "sinister" in the question. Using-the::word "sinister" however, would not have earned a candidate a mark. ,':-' 2. The general form of th~rubric (Jf question 13" is very similar to that of the second most difficult question vf.z . 16 in the 1989 paper (Appendix A page 6), in that 'both questions begin by instructing readers to examine a partiolllar piece of text and then follow this impera.tive {( Page 65 with two Wh-questions." (~.,:;.z is formally an imperative but functionq5.1y a What""questiQn.) The Q-elements funct.ion quite '-;i " normally in both qUestions, in 13.1 as object ,of the clau$~ \ \ and in 13.2 as an adverbial. As was tlJe casE:l,-,inquestion 16 ""~-'II neither question posed much difficulty iIi interpretation for even the weakest candidates. l "I vi'sualiS\s•• ~1'"8r. tlIrhealliteration helps to ••• " 1 thus indicating an awareness Cit least, of what was'reguired as an ;:ftnswer•• The image that. read~rs are asked to visua:t.ise i~ part of the ! sellteribet'lhichreads: "sometimes the drifts of smoke are '_',1:_/_,rosy with sulphur, lind serrated :flainesi like circular saW's, squ~eze themselves out from beneath the cowls of foundry chimneys. II, oI ) J It is a compound sentence with a regular struct~re, a single main 'clause joined to a second by the common co-ord.ina~or "and". A reader beginning a granunatical analysis is able to identify subject and verb in the first clause without any interruption or need for a re-analysis because of unpre- ,~ dictable elements. The'co"'ordinate clause is slightly mor~ problematic. The subject is easily and qui.ckly identifiable I ~,. but the postmodifying p:repo{?_itionalphrase, "like circqlar saws", interrupts the reader'$>search fo::.:'averb. The phrasal verb itself is in a sense interrupted by the pronoun "themselves" but woUld have been less interpretable (possibly even ambiguous) had it been written *"squeeze out themselves." Page 66 l'otentially then these two inter!.\.!r.'~ingelements could hinder a reader in an initial search for SUbject and verb and thus place an undue processing load on the reader~s working memory. 3. \Quite commonly, when examiners use technical terms such as "simile" or "alliteration" (often quite unnecessarily), c.ertcdn candidates are intent on displaying memorised /~/ (kno\l1ledge.in th,= hOp"~"that examiners give them some credit.~ Such a candjdate. is 1913, WhO has some idea of what "simile" and "alliteration" signify~ but has not. been able to a~sign a value to the items "simile" or "alliteration" within the context of thi$ particUlar exchange between testee and tester. (The terms e:sig:nification ~!and !!value" are from Widdowson, 1979:8.) 19B wrote: A simile is when you say something is like something else. The actual flamep lifting into the air. and Alliteration is when the letters are the same and ..• it makes it sound more sophisticated like the actual thing th.ats happening. ll. This kind of error is explicable in the light of Widdowson's comment that Language can be manipulated in the classroom in .the form of .text-sentences which .••i:r.dicatethe signification of linguistic items. This is not the saine as language use - the uti,eof sentences in the performance of u.'eterances which give the~e ele:mel1tscommunicative va.lue. 1913 has displayed a knowledge of the signification of tire ,I items "sirnile" and "alliteration" without recoveri.ng wljJat i! Page 67 Kingman (1988:26) calls lithe thick pra91Uatic meaning" of the question viz. d~scribe what it is that you visualise when () you rSc:idthe illords"serrated flames, like circular saws, II \\ 1 \\ squeez~. themselves out •••" ~ ~ To some extent then the error here can be asc:r;ibedto the kind of teaching to which the candidate has been exposed and the use of "trigger-words:!' like "simile" and "alliteration" in the phraoing of the question which tempt candidates to display memorised fragments of knowledge in the hope of get- til'lgcredit in an examination. A number of candidates'focused attention on the "circular saw", which they visualised as neces'~arily' a saw Which saws wood. Answers refer to "wood" or "t.rees" or "sawdust", none of which is mentioned in the text. 1/'. 14B I visualise a saw slowly cutting through a tree. The saw squeezes out of the tree, so the flames squeeze .of(f?) the slag heap. 14B did not offer an answer to 13.2. 43B I visualise an electric saw cutting through a tree and trying to go through to the other end. and It uses a hard "s" sound ie. circular squeeze. 8T I vIsualise a flame that is spiralling upwards in a circular fashion. The edges of the circle of fire are jagged and the flame is spiralling so fast it appears to be slicing the air like a saw. The smoke from the f'Lame looks like sawdust spraying out from a saw whining through WOOd. and •;.the dirtiness and abandonment of the ,"",reais intensified through allite.ration and thus the town seems more sinister, evil and secretive. Despite both questions 13 •.1 and 13.2 being linked by number and by the common image, none of the three responses quoted ! Page ~8 \~ . . ". abo~~ hCiS attempted to relate 13. 1 and 13.2 to each other " (i .Y .. Th1s om1SS10n may also be explained in terms of the kind of teaching candidates such as these three have been subjected to. what Were referred to as Iftrigger-wordsu on page 67 have been taught as discreet pieces of information and a word u like "alliteration" in a question, prornp~s a :t'l?utine respoi;se ....identify commonly occurring consonants. There is 5-.~:::" ('" .;:;I no attempt to expUdh why the writer may have chosen to use the device? and no attempt to relate the sounds produced to the semantic content of the image in question& The answer provided by 43B above to the second part of the question .illustrates Clearly how a tt'iggE;lrlike otalliterati00nU releases the stock response. If stock responses are seen· as stereotypical responses then the, argUI!~tmade above concerning triggers like "sindle" or II ~lli ter tion", is supportec1 1)")Y all three responses. 'l'hese candidates r.:ecoveredthe stereotypical aSSOCiations, ;~ )) "circular saw" - it is a saw used for cutting wood. what they were unable'to do, was to imagine and describe 'W~~~ they saw and heard in terms of the menace ot:industrial- ization. Findings have Shown that forming mental images and affective responses to the text being read leads to recovery of '\:~, .~ ( information at gr~ater depth (Gernsbacher, M. et. al. 19~H{': \J/ 430; Martins, P. 1982:152).'l'he following three answers illustrate that weak candidates Were unable to relate what " they see to what they hear, while reading. Page 69 b \l", • • • • 2OB wrot.e: I v.l.sualJ.se an animal t:ry~ng to free ~tself from"a t.rap but can only movea limited distance. and The continuous itsn sound crea;tes" a burning sound. 26B wrote:" I visualise a hlack and dark battl~field ., that has cometo an end,with flamifs' burning sharply and fJ.ercely.• ...... Weapons- - ~ -_ _ lry].ng- -.-:::,i around which are like the circular saws and like the forgotteH dead from other wars coming out of tbeir g:r:f.,res to fetch the dea;:1that have just died 'on this batJ~lefield. and To emphasise howdark and black this small town is ..• 39Bwrote: A painful ~xperience as you sqt?geze out .the matter out of the saws. Ali ugl}'~ disgusting and painfUl experience. and It makes the image stronger and points out the real truth··pehind. it, thus show- to us its importance. These th1j7eeanswersI which fail to integrate the sights and sounds in a single image., illustrate the difficulties candidates have in constructing conteXts that coincide with .-0·~~~-~ the contexts that examiners construct and consider appropriate (see pages 44,52,55 and 61). Nothing in the syntax of the question or in the text itself exacerbates the difficulty since thes~ candiLdates'"{;ere drawing on a particular sub-set of their assumptions about (( the world (Sperber and.Wilson, 1986:15). , ,/)~ THE SIXTH MO~T DIFFICULT ITElih QUESTION' 18 OF THE 19\1t~) PAPER. 1. Question 18 of the 1989 paper, with a difficulty index of •383 is the last of the guestions \lThichmost candidates Page 70 failed. Like the second-most difficu+t qUestion, it j"s based on a sentence drawn liromsteinbeck's, Canne~ ROW (AppendixA page 5). The question reads: ,( ,f,\:'~' "They comerunning, to cleaTf\"itndcut and pack and cook and can the fish.~' (lipe 29) liere, too, steinbeck useS repetition, this ,time q<'f the word '''and''. He also uses. alliteration. ~f this sentence were read aloud, how.would the sound of it add t.? its meaning? The question draws the candidate,s' attention to the previous one, (Question 17) in Whichcandidates had to commenton Steinbeck's l).se of repEitition. In question 18, they are /.-':::' alertBd again to the tepetition and alliteration. ~s in t\t questit>n 1.7, candidates are expected t~, mention at least. two ..~ -.o""Oc::::,., INFERRABLESin their answers. They need to mention that the ''\\ \h('t repetition of the consonant. [0] and the co-ordinator echo \( ~\the sounds of :machines.(entity 1) in the canning"factorJ.es ~ " and reflect the repetitious and monotonousnature of the business of canning fish (entity 2). These entities and attributes ar<:"nowhere recov.erable from any other ~ntity in I'; the text. Unless a reader associates the repeated [c) with C j? the sound of machiner§,and then reasons that repetitious sounds create boredom, he is unlikely to be given any credit for an ansWer. An answer by 3'1'was awarded full marks! The repeated heavy Uc!~, sound emphasises the aqtivity taking place; i.t emphaSisesthe drudgery of th..~ aotivity, as does the repetition of th~. word JI~andn"lhieh also. serves to }:mildthe events to a "cl1:1l1C!cx->:rhe short, on~"'syllable words (cut and pack and cook etc). evoke the methodica.l fastmoving process (of macb ' ..~ry) • « A candidate (28B) whodid 110tuse Inferrables in the initial n 11 c part of an answer but chose to assign attributes to the work in thg~~actories, was awarded no marks at all. He explained \1 <;the iepeti tion and alliteration as describing hd~ fast (attrib\.ltef) ,ti·h~emploYEaesWork. It sounds quick (attl.:-ibute) and to the point (attribute) with no hesitatiob (entity) at all. (Brackets mine.) To retrieve the notion',that repetition (phon~Inic and lexical) is i.ndicativ~ of some added meaning component (such a9 drudgery or 1tlonot~~l~his dependent on p7tlor' knowledge " /' 'd elabora'tion. Candidates, need to know that' this stylistic device contributes soihe'·additional sense to the explicit ,and Ii teral meanings in the i~entence. As such, a question calling on candidates to use this JmoWJ;edgeis classifiable under ELABORA'lIIVEinfc)tnl~\t.ionwithin the f;-amework of an Ex- QARtaxonomy. 2. Arranged as it is, this ru.bric.~culd well increase a reader I S p,< ')cessing time. Three sentences precede the _" I ( . r >, which con"tains the Q-element, thus necessitating similar backw~rd referencing f:t'omthe reader as question 16 demanded. (The second-most difficult question.) Ho't1eVel:',in a~ initial search for subject and verb, a reader is not likely to have to resort to any form of re-~nalysis since the verb followS subjects closely in three of the four sentences that make up the rubric of this question. The -i predictabilit~r 'cH; syntactic elements then, does not seem to ~.... .! pose much difficulty to a reader. The, co~,poundsentence from which the question was de:riveq is Pagt! 72 unusual in that it contains four co-ordinated norl-finite clauses. Now compound senter!!.;....,.> generally sll0y,idnot provide readers with much difficulty since children"Begin co:mpour:dingwith "and" from a very young age. The difficulty \) (if any) with this sentence must lie in'/the sheer quantity of ellipsis. Compound sentences of t.hiskind allow "both initial ellipsis and final ellilosis,n(Quirk,R at al 1985: " . '; r 911) and' Steinbeck has uSed both kinds. In the foilr co- ...... /) ." ordinate clauSes he oml.tst~fesUbJect (They), the verb and mogifier (come.running) f and the. "to" of the infinitive in inittal positions. The first four oLaus'as use final ellipsi.s /.\ in Jchti'a'theycarry no complementation until the last clause. Such concentrated ellipsis has been fOhown to cans\\readers difficulty (Richek 1977, quoted in pere:r.-a,19S4:294)\yet few (if any) matriculation candidates misunderstood the sentenCe. certainly some of tl},eI" initial e.llipsis was recovered by candidate 3B who wrote: This sentence is like a rhyming scheme, itos like a continuous routine· that these people do. Everyday they come to work, they clean and they cut and they pack ••• The same candidate was not unaware that the cutting and the packing had to do with fish. Her answer to the following question (No.19 of the paper) inclUdes the remark: •••they Come to clean and cut and'pack the fish until the last fish is cut and cleaned. 3. There is litth~ doubt that cand.idates understood both thle question asked, and.the line by steinbeCk, which provided i)oge 73 (r' \) the e:xarninerswith the repetition and alliteration they I; needed in order to ask the qu~stion. Answers which were awarded no marks at all fell into two>" (7 ' main categories; tlley were either provided by .candidates who were ill-equipped in examination techniques or they were provided by candidates who were unable to :matcn.their inferences with the inferences that examiners drew from the repetition and alliter?ltion in the target sentence. ~I Answers by candidates iB and 21B illustrate deficiencies in examination technique: It wduld sound like it. is a sentence that has no full stop but just lots of sentences joined 'with the word and. It \>10uldalso loose its meaning bacause it has no break in batween. 21B wrota: It, is a repetition of the same consonant .sound, 1// It gives us the sound of how it sounds like. ,bth answerS revaal disturbing aspects of what is possibly tad teaching practice. Bo'th candidates appear to believe that. what teachers have told them, will serve as answer-s in a test of this kind. iB has recognised the repetition of "and" and possiblY becaasa he cannot think. of why Steinbeck woUld use such a devic(~, resorts to recounting the advice probably givan to him by his teacher. 21B is a victim of the trigger response common to answars in item 13 of the 1990 examination (see page 67). identified the alliteration but has failed to rell;tteit to meaning in the ta~rget sentence. The Second cat~gory of answers that were awarded no l~,*rks at Page 74 ,/ all for this questi~ncomprised those written by candidatee it who failed to draw the inferences that the examiners drew." Thesc= kinds of C!,nswerS!Wer$'far mOre commol'l;than those G ~ displaying a defiCiency in examination technique. The following respon:t~s illustraD$ the 'candidates@ ability to draw inferences which arc clearly relevant to the " question asked and whicp d'isplaJla clear understanding of ~ what is 'required as an appr.op/~ate response, yet. do not match the expectations oft{:he eXaminers (see Chapter 6 page 144 for more conunent). ,I 1\ lie. It makes: it sound as..if everytl'fingwas done at once, all at the same time :Which it could have. I) .:{~± ~ :c,,~ 17B. If read allowd jb sounds like a lis:t which is exactly what "it \~s; a' list o~,,things they had to do. It adds to the meaning because it.makes us thl.nk of all 'they had, to do ••,cock, pacJ{.., cut, and can the fish. They also couldn't do it all at once and the fO(-'1I!lds"are showing us that. 25B. It.woUld sound very exciting and it captures the adjectiv~s in the sentence. 2GB. It would add more t10w to it. It would J:jeas if the ,~~eaderWas being allowed to do what wa$ being done.' 26Bl. It would make the job sound"so mUch long:er,than it actually is. 1GB. If the sentence were read aloud the soUnd would add to the meaning of speed. The (~process of the can.ning of sardines woU.ld sound to the reader as a speedy process. Everyone working at their best productivity. 28B. The ifan.ds"used .by Steinbeck in de$cribing how) fast the employees work. I.tsounds quick and to the point with no hesitation at all • 58. ••'•Even hez-e wE:>. can see that. everything is dOAle in its.order. One cannot start doing something else without having fin;ished the other. The j/ all1teratiori' adds to the floW'of this routine. ~ i: 29B• Hedoes this tb mak;~/it sound as if it. is being done systematically; that it is all done in one day, from·cleaning to next. and so on. He tries to showus that it is,,) one routine and they are so used to doing it that it comes naturally. 3DB.." ,It will sound as 'if they are. Singing at the same utime as they are working so tha.t they don't bore themselves. The writers of tne ten answers above have been able tq dl;,aw ~·I a wide"variety of inferences. They associate repetition, either};'of the "andh or of the initi01 (c) r with singing, ;, ) systemati.c work, ordering., 'spe~d, the dUration of time; excitement and silnultaneity. Noneof these contexts matched {J the two,that the examiners had in mind.. The sUb-set of the examin~rs' assumptions about the world included the belief thnt a stylistic dey-ice such as the repetition of Sound, in particular in SOmeworkplace, is a reflection or,monotohy on~ carl:''only speculate on the ~9-'Prcec;:f this assumption, but: it might have been adopted by examiners who were trained in English Literature. (This possibili'ty is again ta.ken up later - see pages 145ff.) \i 'i The diversity of some or these.\~respl::msesand of those offered as answers to question 13 (1990~'above, is taken up I, ,Ii in \~hapter 6 (see page 139). HOW these six difficult questions differ from the easy questions is the sUbjeot of theofollowing chapter. Ii (J Page 76 CHAPTER FOUR. A discussion of the kinds of qU$st.ions on which I candidates.. <) scored 70% or more, is undertaken. This is done to establish whether the difficult questions discussed in Chap-t:er3 are differ'ent from easy questions., in terms of Prince G sand Irwin's taxonomies, and to test whether the syntax of easy questions is markedly different from that of the difficult • :J .ones. The procedure followed wJ.ll be similar to that follow"': 3: ed in chapter <:1 1) An explanation of why' an item is classified as it is, in " teri(lSof,.the two ta~onomies uSed for this purpose I will be givep. '~,~~~,::,:::"",:> :;-j 2) A search for possible increases in syntactic processing load will be made. 3) An account will be off.ered of what makes the item an easy one. THE EASIEST ITEM: QUESTION 12 OF THE 1990 P1\rER. 1. A difficulty inde~ of .941 on an item indicates that 94.1% of 'the total number of marks that could possibly be awarded for this question, were in fact awarded. This does not necessarily make the item a poor discri:n~inator in a test, but it showS quite clearly that the sample group scored, on average, over 90% on this item, making it the easiest question matriCUlation candidates encountered in the two examinations ti,nderinvestigation. \1 o QUestion 12 (T.E.D. 1990:5) o.il~ based on the passage by' i-' George Orwell (see.Appendix C page 5 since th~~,question .' involves the whole passa.ge). The rubric begins with the remark that "GOod df!:!SC1:J.ptivewriting usually appeals to one of our five; senses. JI It goes on to instruct ca.ndidates to Identify. th~. writer's USe 9f three different senses ih!::> :this description, ~roviding.an approprj,~te quotation frO1\! the pas~age fc..feach, sense. . Candidates needed to re~\over the .sense (see Lyons., 19(:iS:427P " of the \-.rord",) "senses" as \\t\1 is used in the rUbric, since it is a New Entity introduce~ into the discourse. But its ~"I'-(;;:'-." '~~~;"(\' " • ~ , j stat-C (.Ln terms of "givenness" 'is uncertain. prince '".... "'.~,---) (1981~235) distingUishes betWeen two types of New,Entity, the one Brand-new and the other Unused. In a discourse where :' the readers were a heterogeneous group wh,o had not in any way been prepared for the reading, the entity "senses" would a Brand"'newone. TwO factors, however, need to be taken into qonsideration0in the case of "senses", as it. is used in this question. The first is that high school students are often taught that "descriptive writing" depellds for its effectiveness on the writ~rls deliberately appealing to one or more of the reader's senses ie his sense of sight, hearing, tOUCh, taste or smell. Given that this teaching practice is widespread, "senses" then may .be seen as an UNUSED ent}ty, one that does not need to be created by the readelZ',put is>lpart of his kn~wledge o.f "descriptive writing" • II I' Pag!! 78. .~ The other factor that suggests that this entity ought to be \'I classified as UNUSED is the apparent assumption by the n - examiners that candidates would know what i'L>was that "senses" referred to. The.v;i"'" offer no explanation to I candidates 'of their uSe die "our five sens~s". They assume F not only a shared human, rf:\1i:Uitywith the candidates but. a shared knowledge as w~)ll~, The appropriate q&ot'~~ions from the passage are recoverable from the tex,t. They are; •••at n'ight you can see the red rivulets of fire '''indingthis way and that, and also the slow-moving blue) flames of sulphur ••• (lines 6 and 7) If at rare moments you stop smelling sulphur ~,t is because you have begun smelling gas. (Line 8) Even fihe shallow ,river that run~ through the town is usually bright yellow with some chemical. •• (line 9) I 'l.'hrou,ghthe open doors of foundries you see fiery ser- pents of iron •.• and you hear the whizZ and thump of steam jla~?,}ll1ersand the scrr;am of the iron ••• (lines 13-15) // But the stat!hs of. the el)tit:j.esin the quotations above is // uncertain 1n terms of assumed familiarity. Phrasep such as Ii "the red rivulets of fireu, "sulphur" or "gas" t and "the whizz and thump of steam hammers" are Ne,,,Entities in the discourse. A candidate, however, Who has recovered the meaning of "senses", reads such phrases as "you can see" (line 6), "you stop smelling", "you have begun smelling" (line 8). or "you hear" (line 14) as familiar after "senses" .' and therefore as given information or textually eVOked information. The appropriate ql.'lotationsthat serve as Page 79 answers follow these given phrases an.dltIaYfl~erefore, a'lso be vi.ewedas TEX'liUALL)r' EVOKED entities. :r Irwin's Ex-QARtaxonomywould classi'fy the identification of! the. writer I s lise··of the three different senses as a PRIOR- KNOWLEDGE or 1?RE-~'J;ijAD:rNGquestion since readers would need {\~, ~~~-;J to know in what w~'y"senseis" is used .i.I) the question. The ,";-: ~ "~'i;, quotations thems.elves contain MICRO-EXPL'Id;::,:,~:~nformation that simply needs, to be l;;ecognisedand re-written as part of an answsr. 2. Ce1."cainsyntactiq;,ffeatures might have affected ease of processing. The moodof the question is similar to that of "":0,- the most difficult question (3 of 1989), in that it is phrased as an imperative (see 'page 47). Pregeding the imperative is a simple, active, deolarative sentence, in ..~~V':Jichthe sub]ect in initial pbsi tidh is followed by th~; <. L l' verb phrase with a complement. The second sentenoe of theI; rUbric is, like the rubric of the most difficult question, right-branohing, and so ought to be easy to understand. Two potential sources of difficulty however are immediately apparent. The instruction after the imperative "Identify" is unusually long and secopdly it. is not olear whether. the infinite cla\lse\·;;int.roducedby "prOViding" functions as a '~",:,-,~,.::,~_;.,:';), " subordinate'olause or as a co-ordinate clause in the aerrcence; The unusually long instruction could compel a reader to backtrack, in order to remind himself of the main Verb ("Identify") and this unnecessary load on working memoryhas been created by nominalizing a clause something C' Page 80 like "the writer has .used". F'urthermore, the' nominali~ation itself has the effect of obscur:l:Q~agent and ac,tion•.The common subjl?ct-verb pattern reflects the $elllantic agent- .:\ction$tructure, which accot-ding to Greene Z1987:72),. is one \\ II oJ: the first structures a reader looks for as a "psychO- 1/ logical parsing strategy". Nominalization can frustrate this search by the reader. ,(j:+- 1\"., The other potential source of difficulty, because h. ma}.~e.s pr~diction difficult, lies in the '::5tatusof the clause which ~ , .r' asks cancHdates to provide an appropriate quotatic;m from the passage'\ The, omission of a conjunction which would make eXPlic.;dt;,,\therelationship b~tween the !'rlausest might create unoert.airtty in the reader as to whetheir the writer meant "Identif.:¥the writer's use of three different senSeS •••ana provIde 'an appropriate quotatic:rn••.for each sense" or whether be ~~ant "Identify ",thewriter I s use of three jl different s~nses .••by ~roviding an appropriate ;~ quotation .•• n• .Both possible sources of diffiCUlty might have been removed b¥ a re-casting of the entire second ., sentence into three simple sentences. .If it had read: "The writer has used three different senses in, ''"hisdE:1scription. i Identify them. Provide an appropriate qUQtation for each from the passage", the nominalization "the writerVs use Of three different senses" and the uncertainty of the clJ'lUsal status of the rest of the sentence would have been reSOlved. 3. The item was an easy one despite the syntactic potential for increasing a reader's process,ing load. (j1 Page 8(9 Three out of the five weakest candidates scored well on the question (80% or full m~rks) in spite,of their overall test scores of below 33%. All candidates who scored full marks ~ inter~eted~he non-finite clause as a second clause in 'a .. (\ compound sentence ie they interpreted "providing" as meaning "and provide". question!,libut.did wrote: !I, I, i Siqht i1 $)~~iL 0 iii li;~af'ing This,\is an interesting answer, if one considers that the candidate has managed to recover what is, in effect, the New Entity in the discourse, but has failed to fj.nd the.'!) Textually Evo)ted entities. Following Chafe (~976: 30) that "given" informat,.ion is "in 1\ the addressee's consciousness", one would suppose that Textually Evoked entities are more easily recoverable than "new" ones. lit is pOSSible that this candidate has been schooled into the response he made. He knows that UGood descriptive writing usually appeals to at least one of our five senses" and he has been able to name three of them. A more interesting possibility exists however. The part of the question he has not answered viz. providing the appropriate quotations, is the specific part of the question tha.t conatd tutes both the unnecessary load on working memory c:.'hd Page 82 that is difficult(,t:b predict. This reader has ignored the , ,_:~J _ • _ _ __ _. ~ non-finite clause "providing an approprIate quotatIon from the passage for e3ibh s'ense", and focused his a'ttention on r-. the main vel:'l:;Ior task 'Word("Identify"). If this is a common examination strq,tegy,. it has implications for examiners who _~/-~ phrase ',,',their, qttestions in the way t~is one has been phrased. /?>. ,-I) jJ , ,,,1/ f i ( t/ _ 14 misinterpret1ation of this kind illustrates that what was assumedby the examiner to be shared knOWledge,viz. that \ \ "our f,ive Senses" would be recoverable by the reader as "Otlr",,\ five faculties of sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch" \~/ was, in the case of this reader, not shared:knowledg~ at all. The candidate's PRE-READING and PRIOR KNOWLEDGE (to use Irwin'S terms) were not suffiCiently de.veloped" Most candi.daties; however" hadh:Jeentaught the seDse of ifsensesll and shared this assumption with the examiners. 1/ Poge 83 THE SECOND EASIEST ITJt: OUESTION 20 OF THE 1990 PAPER. \_ 1. Question 20· (see Appendix C page 8) was derived from the paSsage by Russel Baker writing in The star. It is a piece about how unhappy whales are with the pollution caused by people. The rUbric directs the attention of the candidates to the second-last paragraph of the passage which reads: "Your father has been very sensitive about garbd.ge," the mother whale explained, "ever since he dived into 800 tons of fresh sludge that had just peen dumped off the New Jersey coast. Your father and myself wer@ not happy ~ HEi!smelled lik,e a sewer for weeks. I. '-i '" The sentence "Your 'father aridmyself WE;',renot happyU is quoted. candidates> are informed that ~this sent~ht:te~/"'Jeflects 'j ./' ~" ,~- ""'0-" ~"'-~-- a widespread grammatical error most people ~T\aken6wadays."· n '.They are then instructed to "Re'Write the sentence by ;merely correcting the pronoun." They are asked to underline the correction. The target sentence for correction must 1!l:eviewed as, \i TEXTUALLY EVOKED since it appears in the p1assage candidates read. What the candidate needs to recover ie to lM.ritedown as an answer, is the pronoun "I" (to replace "myself") and this is a TEXTUALLY EVOKED entity. The pronoun GlmyselfU :refers anaphorically to the "mother" of lines 1 and 4 of the passage. But candidates were n(\t being t.ested on their i Ii a1:>ility to assign a referent to the pronoi.in.What was tested in this item Was an ability on their parts to replace fl misused p!}:onounwith one that Standard English demands and only 106 candidates out of 893 had trouble doing so. since I) (~\, ",,,- ,;,'>~ \\ each candidate was €',ither awarded full marks or no J;P;drks / / -,/:/ =~~a~lfor this question" it is possible to say thaJ/>~inorettr,'n \~. \': /' , ~ , 89%of the sample population was able to supply"~~~'"t:~~'prOnO}ln required. Irwin's EX-QARtagonomy would place thiG kind of question in the PRE-READiNG,PRIORKNOWLEDGEcategory, since it requests information "relt).ov$dfx'omthe, text ••. and review (l:tY:"; , ,__ -", -- It.,,,..:.f backgrOund~infor:mation" (Irwin, 1986:143). The k,~ndof ':'::'-:~'._,:_~ .' " «' background information'Irwin hatt in mind when constructing this PCirt:i.cular category, was dra~~ from work by Pearson and !)_ diffe~s from.the others ,t q,ertain very specific ways, but roughly ~;~~~irig;"they m~y~l:l he seen /j~S knowle.~g~ ":''::''-<~ :~\. structures of variou~'Skinds and rely heavily on the semantic , !I content of concepts, objects or attributes for their plausibility. It is difficuJ;t. to a:r;;':iuethat the "I" of the // correcd 'ed sentence, in this partiCutar question, is somehow , " '",,' " t semantically different from the "myself" of the deviant\' (>C:-:',-; sentence. The prior-:K:)1owledgerequired of candidates in this question is not of tpe same kind as that usually referred to in reading~esearch. It iSt in a sense not intended by Irwin, "removed ~7omthe text", in thtit this knowledge is part of their standard English dialect. 1/ page.8~) 2. The ~ubric of question 20 contains a number of syntactic \ / features that might have increased a reader's pro~ssing ", f load, but did not (see Appendix C pag~ 8). The fl~lrubric reads: Towards the end of the :3econd"'lastparagraph the foJ.lowing f':~mtenceappears: "Your father and myself were not happy." This reflects a widespread grammatical error most people m.c~~enowadays. Rewrite the sentence by merely correctin~ the pronoun. Please underline the correction. The main clause of the introductory sentence is fronted by a position adjunct which would normaily favour final position. (S~e Quirk and Greenbaum, 1973:227.) The fronting may have been deliberate to avoid end""focus• i!adthe introductory sentence read, "The fOllowing sentence appears towards the end of the second....last paragraph It , the 4emonstrati',e IIthis" of the follotV'ingsCintencemay have been interpreted to mean that the posit.ioning of the sentence in the paragraph was somehow at fault. Candidates could have had some difficulty in identifying the antecedent to which the phrase "the pronoun" refers, since t:hetarg'et sentence contains two possibilities, nYour" and "myself". ,(theinstruction to candidates to "Rewrite the sentence by merely correcting the pronoun" is potentially confusing. The end~weight of the prepositional phrase could have en¢ouraged candidates to "merely correct the pronoun". Oer::l?ite\ch.p'jepotential pitfalls, very few (if any) candidates m;t.sinterp~etedwhat Wchi7 required., a n :3. A number of answers that were given no '1narkScit alII illustrate the kinds of clifficulty .oerti:lincandidates {? experienced. .aa w:rot~: YoUr father and myself are not haJ;>py. ; \~i Either this candidate did not know what a pronoun is, or he ignor~d the hint supplied to cand,idates in the adverbial phrase "by merely correcting the ;,pronoun." A candidate, however, who might have known'What a pronoun is, ~!aS :39B who wrote: You ,father and myself We~e not very happy. , j Given the instruction, "ReWrite the sentence by merely (I correcting the pronoul1;',this candidate may have looked for ~'?efirst pronoun and tried to make some hense of the sentence by "correcting" it. Another kind of error was committed by liB who, ignoring the reference to "pronO\lnll, perc:eived "ha~py" as too colloquial perhaps. She wrote: your father and.mysEHf were not pJ,.eas.ru;!. The reaSons offered for these errors can only'be speCUlative, but in trying to account; for the vast majorit¥." of candidates obtaining full ma.rks for this question, only two plausible reasons can be offered. " Either matriculants are taught the appropriate, polite and standard use of pronouns or they use the sta:ndard as'a matter of course 'in their speaking and writing. 'l'helatter Page 87 possibility is the only explanation that one can offer for the wrong ,answer supplied by candidate 3B. Ignoring the refer~nce to pronoun completely, she wrote: Your father and I weI'a not pleased. Despite cor:recting and underlining the wrong w'ord, she was given full ,marks. Examiners and cal1didates nee.ded to share \,..( the assttfuptioh that "myself" '<'lasgranuna.:ical1y erroneous and n in large meaSUre, they did. But what is noteworthy 1'6 that no "context construction" was needed in this question (as the term has t.hus. far been understood - See page. 4{l) and as" such little disagreement arose between candidates and examiners. THE THIRD EASIEST ITEM:'QUESTION 1 OF THE 1990 PAPER. The question, like the fourth most:dj.f~,.icult question, is based on the LIFE.magazineI!ai:):-ticle,about; Man'S ability to survf ve . (See Appendix C page '2.) " 1. Question 1 of. the 199d_1Qaper,~,.'E.D.1990:3) .is, with a difficulty index of . ~08, ·the last ,of the three questions for which most candidates were awa:t:'de;d'distinction marks. It :L9deliberate and commonpractice .amongst eXami.lers to set an easy question at the begi~ning of a paper of this kind so as to allow writers to overcome any initial anxieties they may feel at the start of an Ed~amhiation• .The rubric "dt~awsthe reade:~0 s at'tention to the opening para- graph of passage 1 (see Appendi>!:C page 3) and. 9tates that "the writer refers t~ the theor:l advanced by many scierltists it. Page 88 ') that man is on the way to extinction. ~Line 1) ". To be awafded full lua:rks, candidates needed to fUlfil two requirements. In question 1. 1, they were asked to use their own words in : \ listing four of the maJ\'~raneas of concern +0 environmental ,)~\~, scientists as mentioned in tlaragraphs 1 and/2. In 1:~:2, they were asked whet:her they thought the writer of the passage agreed that man is, in fact, heading for extinction, and they were aaked to give a,reason for their ~,.:·\U. answerS. ./' / "/ Asked to list, in tbeir own w()rQ$~ fq ·L·J4"...\ ,._ . "~"as?, 0'::... concern that are mentioned in p~.r'agra~ I /1 and ~ r candida tellj ". . ".. .', ':.' ,ci are not, in Oaviel;:.~hd Widdowscm's (:L 974:168) t·"~J.il\S, being asked·fto answer.'a "direct reference." q~.r~'ii\tioh.Davies and willd:wson e:Kpl'~inthat wh~t they have in mind a"t'e "questions '/ \1 which only req\.lit'e of t,he reader that he recover information directl.y from the text as an almost automatit..:procedure. All he needs to do is to refer to that part of the passage to which -the question naturally directs him. u By having to Use thel.r• #ownwords, candf.dabes. ~'r.ebeing. asked here to do more than what is "automaticll• The "a:reas of concern to environmental scientists" that are directly recoverable from paragraphs 1 and 2 are, "the destruc:::tive effects of OUrplower-intoxicated technology", "our unqovezried popqlation l;tro\vth"and lithe dirt, pollution and no:lsell• These "areas of conoez'n" contain six Newand Unused entities, whioh, if rl5!ooveredand written down, would Page 88. that man is on the way to extinction. (Line 1)11. TObe awarded fUll marks, candidates needed to fulfil two requirements. In question 1. 1, they Were asked d~use their ownwords in listing four of the 'major areas of concern ':to environmental " ~.~ scientists as mentioned in paragraphs 1 and 2. ,I In 1.2, they were .asked whether they thought the wri 1:er of the P?ssage agreed\that man is, in fact., heading for extinction, and they were asked to give a reas~onfor their, ~" in thffd? own words, four major areas of concern tha.t are mentioned in paragraphs 1 and 2(, candidates q are not, in Davies and Widdowson's (1974:168) terms, being asked to answer a "direct reference" question. Davies and Widdowsonexplain that 'what they have in mind are "questions which only require of the reader that he reCOve.rinformation directly front the text; as an almost automatic procedure. All he needs to do is to rff,fer to thai;. part of thE)passage to which the question naturally dii-e(;!ts him." :ay having to use \r, their ownwords, candidates are bE:lingasked her-e to do ltlOre than what is "autbmaticll• The "areas of concern to environmental scienti.sts" that are directly recoverable from paragraphs 1 and 2 8lre, "the destructive effects of our power-intoxicated technology", !lour ungoverned population growth" and "the cUrt, pollu.tion and noiser •. These "ar~ds of concern" contain Sl~X Newand Unused entities, whiCh, if recovered and written down, would Page 89 A) only earn a candidate half--marks. (See Appendix D page 1.) To he awardod full :ntar1{S(as more than 90% of the candidates -; were), they had to'p~ovide syncnymcue./; words (see Lyons, 1968: 405) or phraseS for either the at'tributes or the entities that were treated by the examiner as flgiven!!. Viewed as "givenlt, the, entities candidates supplied, ought not to be ;...en as New or trnused,.but as TEXTUALLY EVOKED entities. Brown and Yule (1984: 183,) discussing Prince's Discourse Model see Evoked entitles as "what Halliday and Chafe expect to find speakers treating as 'given'." Part 2 of th~)question which asks candidates whether they th~,nk the writer of the passage believes that man is heading for extinction and to provi(ie a reason for their answers, must be seen as reqUiring two repponses, but argua1:>lyof the same kind. The first response requires a yes/no answer and perhaps a case can 1:>emade for considering this an Inferrable. A candida/ce, however, who is asked whether the writer agrees that man is heading for extinction and can recover a phrase like " Man will survive" directly from the passage, simplY needs to know that usurvival'l and "extinction" are normally in a relation of "oppositeness", what Lyons (1968: 461) descl;dbes as "complementarity" - the denial of the one n impliE~s the assertion of the other. If one term complements the other and one is "given" then the other can be taken as "giVen". In this way then, a simple "No" answer shpuld be seen as nothing more than a confirmation that survival is Page 90 not extinction. This line of thinking wou~;i classify the (/ "NO" an~wer as TEXTUALLY EVOKEDo Candidates could Supply, as a reason for their previous answer, a sentence recovered directly from the.text, such as !i "Man will survive as a species for one reason: he can adapt to almost anything" (line 11). Its direct recoverability makes ita TEXTUALLY :E:VOl{EDresponse. Within the fraluework of Irwin's Ex....QAR taxonolny, "questions "\\ that.\~askfor explicit micro information ask f63,;,specific '",~, facts \~rom individual sentences and therefore ret;:(uire \, \. students\,to chunk and l.·ecognizesyntactic relations." \ (Irwin, 1~\~6:143.) The four "niajor areas of concern" that candidates are expected to list are reooverable from individual sentences and are therefore MICRO-EXPLICIT questions. The instruction to use "your own words 'I. however would " test a candidate's Vocabulary, and as such could be seeh as adding a PRIOR KNOWLEDGE dimension to the questiop_ The "No" required as an appropriate response to the aacond part of the item, cannot be seen on the surface of the text (see page 32) and so should be classified as a MICRO- IMPLICIT question. It calls on the reader to select Ilwhat is important from all the details in individual sentences", such as the fOrce of the disjunct "But" of line 7, and conclude that the writer does not 'agree with the scientists w'ho have worked out a timetable for the ex.tinction of mankind. The reason asked for in the second part of the item is, like Page 91 t.he "four major areas of concern" of part one, recoverable directly from the t.ext and is therefore a MICRO-EXPLICIT qUestion. 2. The syntactic arrangement of t.he rUbric and the text sentences pJ;,ovidedcandidates with little real difficulty. The introductory statement of the rubric In the opening paragraph, the writer refers to the theory advanced by many scientists that man is on the way to extinction " is made up of a main clause, fronted by an adverbial phrase of place, followed by two clauses, one non-finite and one finite. The non--finite relative claUse modifies the object of the main ClaUse and the finite clause is appositive to the noun "theory". Part 1 of the item using your own words, list FOUR of the major areas Of concern to environmental scientists as mentioned in ('~:ragJd~phs1 and 2 employs the commonly used imperative. The matrix C1a\lSe is pos Lt.Loned mediall.y between two non-.finite adverbial clauses. Part 2 Do you think: the writer agrees that man is in fact. hleading for extinction? Please give a re.ason for your answer is a yes/no question made lip of a main clause followed by two noun clauses, the second embedded in the first. The arrangement illustrates (and serves as a possible explanation for the question not being misinterpreted) the principle of resolution (Quirk at al 11985:10:36) ie that the Page 92 final clause shou'icrbe the point of ,-"."tlaximumemphasis. Another reason that the question was not misinterpJ:eted by most candidates' (if not all) is that, despite the embedding, it follows "the dominant tendency of syntactic structu:t7? c that the greatest depth of subordination is rea'ched in the final part of the sentence.1I (Quirk et al 1985:1039.) The yes/no question is foJ:loweq_,bya polite 'f'equestthat candidates supply a reason for the answer given. The reason asked for is recoverable from a number of sentertces in the text, but since a.ttention was drawn to paragraphs 1 ahd 2.1 four sentences serve as reasons for the writer believing that man is not on his way to extinction. They are: o (1) I am.tired of hearing that man is on his way to extinction ••• (lines 1 and 2); (2) Man will survive ,asa species for one reasont he can adapt to al1ll,ostanything. (lines 52 and 53); (3) I am sure we can adapt to the dirt, pollution and noise of a Ne't>lYo!.':kor Tokyo. (lines 5:3 -55) and (4) But that is the re~l tragedy - we can adapt to it. (55-56). (1), (2) and (3) are right-branching and there is nothing in (1) to suggest that readers. at this level" may have held difficlllty.understanding it. The colon use in (2) might have caused readers some difficulty, since 'there are a number of uses to which the colon is put, but it is neVertheless predictable as 111eaning "because" i especially as it follows the word "reason1u Page 93 directly. \_ (3) requires that readers insert the ellipted subject and verb of the subordinate clause (we can adapt to the pollution and we can adapt to the noise), but since ellipsis of this kind is.always in the second clause, it provided readers with no difficulty. (4) is a compound sentence and since compound sentences are r. acquired ~arly in children's speech, they generally present few difficulties to J:eaders. It is worth, noting here .(since' it forms part of the discussion in :3 below) that. it\is the second main clause that reallY,serves "'';0 show that the \1riter believes that man will survive. 3. only two of the bottom 50 candidates might have mis,understood the first part of the quest~(:m.f). .• None ~isunderstood the second part. liB wrote as an answer to ....Animal life - Na.ture itself - cities - Mankind. He has recoVered "four of.the major areas of concern to environmental scientists" and he has used his own words. what he has not done is to recover the areas of concern "as mentioned in paragrap~\s 1 and 2." Very similar is the answer provided by 26B: Main areas of concern are wildlife, oson layer, Nature and death of mankind. (f'?'! ;' Neither has paid attention to the non-fin.ite adverbial clause. in final position, "as mentioned in paragraphs 1 and Page 94 2." The question of why both readers neglected the reference to paragraphs 1 and 2 raises the problem of which constituent in any given sentence carries the ~n.formation r "1> focus. The probler4 has not been satisfacto:d.ly.resolvedo ') Generally speaking, some appeal would haVe to be made to the prosodic features of any given utterance. Both these candidates were awar.ded full marks for the.second part of. the quest(ion. The second part of the question required candidates to interpret t,'h~ request "Please gi v« a rea.son for your answer" l' as an instruction to quote a line or t' (1) and (3). What is noteworthy is th.!atnot,\91'teof tqe 50 \ v \'. \ weakest candidates chose to quote wh~t :i.~,\. ply the most , " "_-''\r:_;-'''_'_'-' explici t statement of the writer's opinion H~'the second c.Lause of (4), "we can adapt to it". The most o.bvious reason for this is that readers began their search for an appropriate line from the beginning of tl;~ passage. Most, however, did not use the very firj;t line and went on 'co find what they thought was a more appropriate reason, viz. the ;i Page 95 '\__ ~C:~ first sentence of 'i)aragrClphtwo 6r even"'i.nesecOI'ld.The (r I' 'third sentence was ignored for one of two ''Possible reas< ns: when readers had found what they copsidered ~ better line ~" \\ than one that may have been identified previously, they stopped their search quite promptly without considering the next sentence; or they were stopped in their search by some feature of the next sentence. It ,ispOssible that t.he "But" (( of" the next sentence.~ signaling as i.tdoes, a con.trast of expectation (See Quirk et al.1985:9Z5)., creates some interference with 'the reader's predictions, and he is almost involuntarily brought to ~ stop. A particular reader, 17B; found the last,sentence of paragraph one difficult to se~ent. She wrote: The writer def':!,nitelyagrees •. Againf as in the second easiest. question (see pa.ge 87)1,; candidates did not need to construct a context that /' necessarIly coincided with a sub-set of ;assumptions that examJ.ners held. \1 TWOEASYITEMS.OF EQUALDIFFICULTY. " 1. Question 1 (T.E.D.1989:3) and gyestion 9 LT.E.D. 19!tO:4) ;i..,':; both have a difficUlty index of .711, and' provide an '~( interesting comparri.sonof the kind of item that both 1989 and 1990 candidates found equally diffJLcuft. 9uestion 1 (T.E.D. 1989), based on tile passage that contrasts East and West Berlin""'- see Append:t~A..page.'3, reads: AccardincjJito this t?xtract, what. characterizes the difference between' west and Er..st Berlin~! ..~~~~ This question calls for the ~ecovery of t~T atl:ribut;~s of two TEXTUALLYEVOKEDitems from the text. The candidate who was able '1;\0 merrt.Lon in an answer that the difference is one of west :Berlin's vitality as opposed to East Berlinws 'Z) drabness, or of 'west Berlin' s glamorous f glittering image",~n :~i', pontrast to East Berlin's abnor~~litYl received full marks. p, \\ \ The ca,hdidate who identified "the attribute /nsOci~"ilist" (line inferred that west Berlillc,"1nustthen be "c~l:dtal:i.st" v, (~J' "\\" '" was '::i'ivencredit for the inference. \ ) II, Art anSwer which received full credit despite not ment:Loni.~g --;;; the TextUally Evoked attributes was the a!lswer supplied'-'by 25T who wrote: Berlin is free from communist rule and\\seemingly more in tune with Western sophistication unli]l;e East'Berlin which is trying to make up for the fa'ct that it is ruled b~r.the Communistg'overnment a~p become more modern and it if; this that chal..'acterizes the difference between East and west. ' ;,....-...... :Within the ,f::cameworkof Irwin'S; taxonomy (i~86) this question would be cai;.egoriz.ed as being a MICRO-EXPLICIT (/ Page 97 question but with some i:mplicit dimension. What is implicit is the fact that West Bel:lin is capitalist and this COUld nave been inferred. Question 9 (T.:E:.D.1990:4), based on an advertisement that, encourages the preservation of seals - see Appendix C page If 4, reads: ii Has your attention been:!drawn to this advertisement? Refer to three different techniques thatt have been used. The entities that candidates needed to recover as ansWers were INFERRABLES. Full marks were given to answers that mentioned bold headlines, the shocking picture and the bold secondary headline. Candidates were awarded marks for saying that the language was emotive and the "Beauty o/f~thout II 1(,. cruelty" emblem attracted their attentj.on. Nor'h?of these answers is directly recoVerable fro:m the text and as such, (j :must be viewed as Inferrables. Irwin~s EX-QAR taxonomy wou,ld classify this question under 1) the hE':ladingof PRE-READING and PRIOR KNOWLf,,)GE.Part of what - Irwin sees as prior knOWledge are "background concepts ..and as the question reiers to "techniques that have ,been used", candidates would need to draw on whatever they :may previously have been told about "techniqUes". This background information would most likely have been taught as IItechnit:;fpesused. by advertisers." Any candidate unaware that oertain attention-getting devices were at work in a i' text that is quasi-advertisement, oould not, from the text itself I recover anythinq that would sel"ve as an al}Swer. 2~ Syntactically, question 1 of the 1989 paper is a 'simple wh-question, w'ith the .wh-element functioning as sUbject. of the clause. The main clause is fronted 'by the viewpoint sUbjunct '~According to th.is extract •••BV. " For the careful candldate, the question clJughtto have been a \'\ diff icult oneu The Q-element should be interpreted as singular in number, given the singular form· of "character- izes" and the singular form "difference". Most candidates, however , made mention of more than one difference bet'tlleen !i East and West Berlitl, and were given credit. candidate 32'1,1 used no fewer than nine attributes to characterize the difference between the cities. West Berlin is under the West German government, ano. is therefore capitalist, and as such is prosperous, alive and modern. East Berlin is communist, and is drab, old- fashioned and hasn't; got the "glittering" image of the Western portion of the city. The "ands" of the 2nd and 4th lines"have (presumably) been taken to mean liasa ccnsequencev , Had they been' taken as "in addition to", the answer would consist of nothing but a list of differences between the East and west parts Of t~e city. The top candidate, (iT) who did interpret the que$tion as requiring the mention of a single characteristic lost a nlark for doing so. She wrote: The difference between East and west Berlin is characterized by the difference in life"'styL'.- the bustling modern world of West Berlin and\the uncertain life of East Berlin are sharply cOlitrasted. In this case, the careless phrasing of the qp.esti.oncost the ca.reful reader a mark. Most candidates adopted the _tried .and ':( I) Page 99 trU$ted examination technique and wrote down more than one .,c:haracteristic in the hope that a mention is rewarded and a wr~~lgl1),entionis often not penalized. The technique paid off. The sen.tence from which the memorandumtook its answer begins on line 30. It reads: Thel90VernIr,er~<)of" CommunistParty. Leader Erich Hbnecker hopes that the face-lift will alter East Berlin's image as the drah socialist sister of the glamorous, ,. glitteri.ng west. :rt is al complex, right-branching sentence with two potential aour-ces of diff iCUlty. Theria is embedding'within the sUbject /I ' . noun phrase and this struc~' ~~\\is extended by an appo~dtive phrase. "conununist Party :t..eac1er"is embeddedin ,jJrhe governmentio and "Erich Honeckert' is in appositj.on to "communist Party Leader" . The second possible source of difficulty lies in the extenged postmodification of the direct object in the nominal clause. It cq,rries two degrees of embedding; "the drab socialist sister" is a constituent of "image" and of "the glamorous, glittering West". Both structu.res could cause an overload 'on working ltleJnory. o Syntactically, Question 9 (T.E.D. 1990: 4J is made ttp of a , (j simple How-question followed'by'a comp]"elC,directive.- HOw·has your at:tention been. d17~wnto this, advertiselllent? ',;Refer to three different teeihrdt"ues that have been used. " Tne question follows the normal rule with the Q-elel'I1Bntin Page 100. initial position and, in this case, operating as an adverbial of process. The directive contains a main clause /"'-\ .. '-".~J fQ,tlowed by a subordinate defining :r:elative clllluse. The ~---~;~~, positioning of elements within both sentences ls not in any way unusuaL, COllunenton the syntax of ,the te}i.t is not neces~lary since the Pictofi~al and typographical information that cc;mdidates needed. to recover as answers to this question j,s not " organized syntactically (in its present sense). 3. Accounting for the relative ease with which candidates answered question 1 of 1989 and 9 of 1990 (71. ~.% of tp.e total number of marks available for the qUestic)hs wer~ awarded) can be done in terms of tij~ kinds ,of' i.nformation that needed to be recovered as answers. (See C:Q.apter5, pages 110ff fbr discussion.) The potential difficUlty qt the ,\\synta9tic organizat,.ion of the first question ('l'.E"D.1989:3) ,\ () did not impede processing by the~_,readers in ,any,way. This is ;' ) j eVident in the answers which the weakest candidateS provided. None of the candidat'es quoted bel,ow achieved more than a 25%overall mark/for the examination. iB: The West Berlin is characterized as a. place where there is SQ much going on ~yen. at night. Ni~rht and day 1001< t.he same. East Berlin has heEmseen as a ve:r.:y gl6,lmol"ouspla(':le. The differ;" enca betw~en the blO Is "that West Ber~~n dO'as not cave' beaut.:t, th.er~ is just'::"'li:ovement'of . people possibly ~obl?es and East Serlj;;n has >the P~ftlty .. " , .,..\II \1 ' ·,""t' 2B: In West Berlin the monstarous walls force the ab- normalities of the West, to maintain S?em, While they keep the streets of charm in the Ea.st as attractive, and as lively as th~t of any other Page 101 metropolis in Europe. 3B: West Berlin is a placE!;that can-be descr;J5ed as always being on its feet. It's a place that keeps rocking all night long. East Berlin on the other hand is ,a place that can he described as being in a dOrmant stage, aTmost time to go into hiber- nation for good. 4B: In this extract the communist part.y character- izes the difference between East and west Berlin. All four writers knew what was required of them yet none of these answer-swas atvardedfull marks •. Both candidates 1B and p2B have confused East and West Berlin in certain sentences they wrpte. The prQ}Jlem appears to he referent assignment. 1B attaches the attribute "glamorous" to East Berlin rather than to west Berlin and itc , is note- worthy that this error occurs exactly at the point iJlthe text-sentence where there is the emhedding mentioned in 2 above. 2B has not identified the "Wall" as the Berlin Wall and,sees people coming into East Berlin as passing ("past") monstrous walls. She has reasoned that if the people corning' in to an "attractive, lively" city viz. East Berlin, were passing monstrous Walls, then the monstrous walls must belong to west Berlin. This error can be seen as having its source in the reader's, inability to identify the "Wall.'. (J Both candid.ates',' have attributed to East.Berlin such '\ qualities as "charm" (line 51) or "beallty" (derived from line 45) but have failed to identify these Characterisctit;s as belonging' exclusively to the Unter den Linden, rather ,~}lanto Eas,tBerlin as a whole. The reference to ,East Berlin in the,opening line of paragraph three could ,',well have Page 101 metropolis in"Europe. 3B: West Berlin is a place that can be described as always being on its feet. ItQs a place that keeps rocking all night long. Ec;tstBerlin on the other hand is "~·;,f' Both candl/dates-, !\ have attributed to East Berlin such \'t gua.litieisas "charm" (line 51) or "~)eauty" (derived from line 45) but have failed to ide'ntify these characteristic~ as belonging ,~bcclusivelyto the Unter den«Linden, rather :ethanto East B,erlin as a whole. The referende to East .Berlin I) in the ope'ning line of paragraph three could /,Wellhave '<,,) Page 102 prompted this error of reference. o The answer by 4B appears to be completely correct, given the singular form of the verb in the question posed (see 2 above). E:xalniners,however, interpreted the question as asking Candidates to provide a set of differences between East and West Berlin, and so 4B'S answer was not considered fUll enough. Very f,ew candidates were awarded no marks at all for " question 9 (T.E.D.1990:4) 1 indicating that most. knew What was tequired. only two candidates of the worst 25 misinter- preted the question in s~'meway. 1GB wrote: The advertisement shows that also animals are adapting ce.+;;,s,aj.n~mvir<;>nments,by moving his head, trying to avd~d be~ng k1lled. The difficulty experienced bY'1 a candidate such as this is not easy to comment on without employing Some "think alOUd·! procedure. The candidate did not misinterpret ~any questions othex' than those relating to passpge B. He came within 5% of uJ . passing 'l;.hepaper, but only manageg 1 mark out of 14 for questions based on this passage. These observati,ons lead' one to suspect that the candidate had not had much practice in answering ~uestions on adv~,rtisements, and his was a prior \\ Ii knowledge or pre-reading" problem. : I '; I I,JAnothercandidate who came within 3% of passing the paper (22B) wrote: Shock, shame and cruel techniques. is readily interpretable as something like "My has been drawn to this advertisement by the shock it evoked in me, by the shamel~t caused me to feel, and by J); reminding me of the cruel techni~ues used to k.ill seals." Had. the candidate written this fuller answer, it is still doubtful as to whether she would have been awarded any marks. The examiners assumed that candidates had been taught something about iltechniques" in advertis.ing and were looking for answers relating to layout or boldness of type or some such approach to advertising technique. In effect what was required was shared assumptions between examiners and '-:: candidates about advertising techniques. Examiners SaW it as a pre"'reading or prior knowledge question, and candidates who treateq it di:fferently, such as 22B above, were,·awarded ,. \\ no mar.h:Sat all. What emerges from the scrutiny of the easy guest.ions is that they are different from thoE;'.$that were difficult in 'terms of both the kind of information that serves as answers and tne amount of context that candidates needed to cons't(ruct. The ease of some of the questions can be accounted for in terms of prior-kn,?wledge, ie candidates had most likely learnt specific items Of information that served as answers to certain queatd ons ; :easy questions demanded t.he recovery »:)~ of Evoked or explicit information, whereas difficult ones demanded the recovery of implicit information by inference from constructed contexts. But the syntax of the difficult questions was not mark~dly :more complex; than the syntax of the easier qu.estions. These very general concj.usIons are examined in g~eater detail. in the following chapters. 17 If G (/ q lJ o c) " () \\ Page 105 CHAPTER FIVE. This chapter consolidates the findings of Chapters 3 and,,4 and will argue that Transvaal Education Department matriculants find certain kinds of comprehension ques'ti?n di.fficult, either because they do not have an adequat'e Ifsub- set of assumptions about the worldII (s~,p page 4: 4), or more II specifically, because they are asked to draw inferences from -, a complexrelationshj.pI, between a writer's style and his \~.:::::: .. --.::.~.~ cC)lllmunicativeintent: -----;:~~~ ""-"::" The argument will be developed by reference to the ability of matriculants to process compleXsyntax and yet not be able to az'rive at'\ a stat~ of comprehension that sa.:l:.isf;i.es examiners. The reason for this is that (.;andi;pa~,esare not • 11 \\ -: ,~, \,\ sufficiently equipped with contexts that they share with examiners, Which in turn allow them to make the kinds of inference so necessary in c,omprehensiontests. An explanation of what inferences candidates were expected to draw is given, based largely on an account by $parber and Ie Wilson (~986) of the processeLl at work in ut.teran~~ intarpretatiqn. !lllt_QUESTIONOF SyrTACTIC COMPLEXITY. i, ;\ Enoughresearch has shown (both in L~ and IL2studies) that language proficiency, and more particularly syntactic processing, plays an importarft role in CO](llprenend;ingwritten text (see Berman, 19S4:13~ff; Cooper, 19814:122ff; Perfetti, 1965:173 and Devine, 19.38:260). But what is not certain is the extent to which readers rely on syntactic processing to construct meaning. Alderson (1984) and others have proposed a kind of linguistic "threshol.d", a ceiling of linguistic competence, below which a reader ',S ability to comprehend text is limited. Grabe (cited in Devine, 1988:267Y-b¢lieves \\'_: that readers must reach a stage of automatic processing of the sYlltactic patterns before other process~s calloperate in the comprehension of text. This' s't\,ldy supports the claim made by Grabe (1988) that linguistic knOWledge (explained \\ later as "'therecovery of a'-semantl.c'Z~_:_}'I.. ',' .• representation" - see page 116ff.) is only on~,part ~,f_,.the knowledge a reader uses \\ ,li .,,' in c01l1prehendingtexts. \~t scf~~ol-leaver level, other \\ \, \\ '\ processes which are dependent oh th~'nrecovery of other kinds of knowledge are at least aiS'''' important as linguistic ~l= knowledg~ is. Candidates in t&~e matriculation exami.nanLons under scrutiny appeared to have had little difficulty interpreting the syntax of either the instructions or the texts set, from whi.'?hquestions were deri,[~j}< t,~/ chapter 3 outlined the potential sources of syntactic complexity in the six questions that the majority of the sample population failed ..and Chapter 4 des9!.'1.:bedthe potential sources of syntactic complexity of t\he five 1\ questions for which most candidates were award~d a mark of 70% or more. A comparison of poteptial j~Ofu~'rt~)t~\y;teV$al~~' (( . ; "O~-c_>_, that the difficult questions conta:'.{n~~dno more instanoes Of Ii\-, complexity than did the easy question~\, page 107 TABLE 5. * == Instances of potential difficulty in either question or tex.t. 1 2 3 1 2 3 Question 3 of 1989 * * * Question 12 of 1990 Quest±jpn 1.'6 of 1989 * * * * Question 20 of" 19;~.0 QuestYon 9 of 1989 Question 1 of 1990 Question,,,-!.7of 199C * N"v: * Question 1 of 1989 Question 1.3 of 1990 * Question 9 of 1990 Question is of 1989 * ,:;-) j) KEY.: 1 = structures difficult to Jedict 2 = structures difficult to segment ..Xl 3 = Structu.res that can o'{}rload working memory. The table above does not, however, reflect qifficulty an individUal may have had in processing the syntax of a qU,tpstic)nor piece of text in the examination. This kind of difficulty may w'ell have been eX:f!'eriencedby candidate 2B in the 1989 examination who;\;wrote as an answer to 16/~ (See page 45): (/ It's obvious that if the canneries would eat the sardines if they dipped their mouths into the bay. An answer lilee this, in response to t1~e 1~struction c to "Explain what he means when he says, 'The figure i~ advisedly chosen' ", is diff icult to e.xplain 'I.'4'ithoutsome immediate access to the reponderlt's train of thought at the moment: of response. "Think-aloud" protocols mayor may not conf Lrm this sort of anSWer Js being th.e result of syntactic processing. Simila:t'ly, laB's response to being asked to "l.dentify the )) Page 11:16 'writer's use of othree different senses'in t.his '! descripti0n •.•" (qu~stion 12 of 1.9SJO) 1':: diffid'1.l.1tto eXpl,~in \~~ I' for the same 'r~~ason, She wrote: 'I The sense of touch has been used 'I!!:l:ienthe slag-heap is introduced because it is planless and .functionless. These answers may;reflect a syntactip problem caused by other factol:."s, such as an inability on the part of the reader,s ..lto identify' a cannery or slag-heap. (See page 13 where this possible problem is man~\ioned.) '\, Bo'th of the examples illustrated above were 'drawn froID.the most likely ques;t:ions that'/may have provided candidates(.'with i,_\ syntactic problems" (\Question 16 of J.989 and question. 12 of 199'0.,'1" However, despite these possible syntactic, d:i.fficUlti~ which may q;r may not, help 'co accourre for answers as wrong as the \,\ two qUoted above, the vast majority-of questions Which candidates found difficlitlt, can be explained in terms of the ::',;;:::< ,(i ,i kinds of questions aske~'. This assertion is', to some ext~i1t, borne out by ref·erence to the answers provided by the weakest candidates to the syntacticallY complex ques:tions in both examinations. For instanca, in attempting to answer question 16 of 1989, Ib (the weakest candidate) illustrates quite clearly that he :',,-\ Understands the syntax of tn~ question and the text-fragment from which the qUestion was derived. In response to the question, "What can you.'S~'d1.l.cefro~>1,;:his\ff his att~~ude to - \) II "~ . canned sardines?" he l:.)egan by writing, "I~deduce that he Page 109 () hates the way sardines ~'•• II Or in his secol)d answer to 16, the same ca:ndidate begins, IIHemeans that it has been, chosen because ••• " , This, in response to "Explain what he means \y /' when he says ••. " Nothing in the way this candidate has phrased his answers signaJ.$'i:.. misunderstanding of the synta~ n of the question. c,~ "Aslcedwby the writer had used semicolons in Passage A of the L! 1 _" 1990 examiliation (th~ .tost di~lficult question of the 1990 examina:bion), the weay,jest candidate replied: \\ The use of the semicolon is to give us a longer break after each point. " It is difficult ,to see how'the syntax of the question a itself., or of t;pe lines he was asked to' comment on, could, have been an obstacle to his Understanding. THEKINDS OF.QUESTIONS WHICiICANDIDATES ",f-Q...UNDEASIEST AND MOSTDIFF:tCOLT. ~l Table' G overleGi(\,\summarizes the kinds 0; questions " 1,...:..1 candidates '\found lnost difficult Glndeasi'~st in the twO examinations. ::' c ::;:::: Table 6 -...:::: (:i c Kinds of Questions ~ I . .... '. ''':-/' t t Question Brand-new IUnused I Inferrables EVOkecl!EVOked I PfelUdiag &. Prior ~CIQ IMicro Integrative Integrative Macro ,I Macro Elaborative Nul!ll::er Textual Sl:uatiol!ll1 Knowledge Explicit { Jmplil.it Explicit Impli~it" ExpliCit,} Implicit I ~' Order of Difficulty 3' of89 .. 1 I I • 16 afS9 2 I i 1·* I I " I * I - I r t ~ ~ I I I D .. I r I .'.. I .. i~:r::; .:!.: ::I 1 I ~~ Ii I! .' -1---I I ,,,~!c ~_~_j __..___1 ! ! u_~_~~ 13 af90 5 [ I I ",. I I I .... * " 180f89 6 1 I I '".. J f . I t 1 J I '" \~,' , I I " I () Queruon Number /' 1 oro" of Eo~ 120f9(}" I 1 .. .. - c 20 of 90 2 --.. .. 10f96 3 ...... (3,,* .. 10f89 4 ~~ _.:::;~--"-~J '" 90f90 .. L ___ , 5 - I I-::J~ 110 a Page 111 !I The easiest guestions~ The pattern which emerges from the classification in Table 6 above 'is clearo. Candic;lates~ind Textually.Evok:~d, Micro Explicit and prior-knowledge questions .easiest. The Textually Evoked question is one that re~ir~s the candidate to recover some entity or entities represented .i;n ;-_::'> 'ehe text as NP:s which the)writer has treated as "on the qounte;r.\f)(Prince, 1981:235 - see page 24 above). By lOonthe c(')unter",Prince .means that the entity has, at $ome previous \\ pCI:intin the discourse, en]oyed some mention. Micro"'explicit questions require the students to "acover .information that is explioit ie appears ~n the surface of the text, and in this sense can be likened to textually evoked information. This would explain why each of the easy qu~~stions classified as Textually Evoked is a100 classified as ,.Micro-explicit. There is an exception however, and it is qUesltion 20 of 1990" The "I" that candidates were required to write down as the correction to "your faTher and myself" is recoverable as an instance Qf anaphora, and therefore textually evoked. But it doeS not appeal pn the surface of the text, and therefore \ is not classifiable as strictly explicit. It should be noteq. that "explicit" here is used in the sense out:t-,inedin Chapter 2 (see page 31). Sperber and Wilson (1986: 1~(~) define e~plicitness as "a development-.of a logical form". e "Incomplete logical farat,s"are explained on page 118.) P;:lge 112 (,1 From an examination of the four easiest questions that have been classified as requiring some pre-reading or prior knfiwledge, two kinds of prior knowledge can be distinguished. The first is the taught kind, that which a matriculation pupil ('can he expect~d to have been taught in class. The second kind is the linguistic knowledge one expects school-leaVers to possess of their mother-tongue. f.' .'. , ~ Question. 12 of 1990 and Question 9 of the same year ill\lstfate the kind of taught knO\lTledgeee~p(.aminerstest. ,I .,11 Quest~btl 12 of 1990 presupposes that the word "senses" ,will be taken to refer to the sensations of sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste. '.reachersof English very commonly , . ~ ,.tell pupils that "desc~iptive writing" is made more effective by the use of words or phraseS that "appeal to the readers' senses." Question 12 of 1990 has therefore also beel1 classified as Unused within prince·s terms, sipce ,qits pret:lence(in the. reader's dis'course model) can be taken for granted". (Prince, 1981;135.) A second CQnunonly taught topic in most South African English classrooms is "advertising:";. Question 9 of 1990 'asks candidates to mention certain advertising "techniques.1f Most Clar!did~teswould have been exposed throughout ...tbeir ~:::: secondary schooling to the idea that bold headlines or pictorial messages are effective adVertising "techniqueso,• :But because one cannot be completely certain of this, the question has been classified as an Inferrable - the only easy question with this status. o Pagt! 113 The second kind of prior knowledge that examiners test and that candidates. find easy to display is the knowledge of their language and the standard dialect most use. 1 1990 Question of asks candidates to exprig~1S-,"'~ in their 'own words the four major areas of concern to env.i.~f()nmental '\. which ':r.:andidates scientists. TO account for the ease with \.' were able to do this, one must suppose that the topic viz. environmental concern is frequently in the pUblic eye and words like "destructiveU or "crisisH• or "pollutionll a;re often replaced by, "suicidal" or "crunchu or "contamination". certainly, the accessibilitx" of synonyms within this topical area is a result of its enjoying a wide aha frequent exposure in the mass media. Question 20 of 1990 has been shown (see page 83ff) to illustrate the ease with Which candidates (sqmetimes qi4::te \' unconsciously) use ~tandard English,(,pronou,ns.The fact that • \ i most candl.dates ~ere\)awarded full marks for replacing "myself" with "X" indicates ironically that the examiners' opinion is quite wrong. The use Of "l\lyself"for "I" obviously does not reflect a "~'1idespreadgrammatical error". {See Appendix c page B.} The single instance of inlplicitness in the group com:prising the easy questions occurred in question 1 of 1990. Asked whether the writer agreed with the opinion that :man is on his way to extinction, candidates needed to supply the word uno". The word does not. appear on the sllrfaOEtof the text and so was classi~ied as implicit. (But 'see pages- 89 and go for a fuller discussion.) ~he most difficult questions. Tal:lle6 (see page 110) illustrates t.hat the three most difficult kinds of comprehension questions are the lnferral:lles,the Integrative Implicit and the Elal:lo:t"ative questions. What this means is that the most difficult comprehension qu~stions are those that call "on writers of the test to access inforl1\ati~nthat is inferral:lle,since all three kinds are char~cterized in the taxonomies used, as requiring so;me form of inference~' What is .interesting about this very obvious f'inding is that the que~tions candidates \\ find most diff.icult are the very questions '~hat test the \, ,. . \ most important aspect of co:mp':;(-:.hension,Viz.\ the ability t.o \\ dl.",awinferenceS. It could; follow from this f\nding thau) if matriculation 'Icompr\,;hensiontests set out to nt\~asul:'~how 1\ tolellcandidates were able to carry out the 1TlOS~ important aspects of (~o:mpreht:.msion;.most might faiL It is quite" commonly aC(;'eptejncwadays that ,.••.the role of inference in (:' compr-ehensLcn cannot be overstressed." (Irwin, ;1.986:2'/'.) Sperber and wilson (1986:177) call inferencing "the :main part of the comprehension prpcess." The question however remains: given that inferenci:ng plays a predominant.rol.e in .. the generaa' operation of comp:rehencUng, what is it that J readers are required to do to inference? Researchers have different views of the p;t;'ocess(See Chapter 1, pages 6ff) Page 115 \) but an attempt at a fuller answer 'than that,Q;GfSred in -;) , chapter 1 follows. Questfbn 3 \~bf 1989: the most difficult guesti~tt« ;_ - -- , \~ C, ' An initial and brief explanation of what constituted the difficulty candidates experienced in answering ques.tion :) of 1989 was offered on page 44. :1.:. suggested that candidat~$ were not able to meet necl;:,..;'If··~t:'Yconditions of context cpns'tt:'uc;;tion. These necesso.1:y condftions should be viewed .( as a shared set of assumptions between examiner and candidate, as will become clearer in the explanation offered below (see pages 117,119,132). The explanation relies enti,' ~''1 on t'lork by Sperber and Wilson (1980), parts of t'ih are Useful for ident.ifying what it was that made th\~ questions.) difficl:l}.t. .In the course ofr attenlptinq to formulate ija ..theory of human cOll\lnunicat.ion,based on the Gricean co-oper.11I.tivepr~,~~:ip:Le of relevance, they outlit'le the tasks and subtasks a hearer needs to carry ou.t in order to arrive at an interpretati9n of an utterance. Essentially the tasks q,re: ther o(:mstru.ctiofl;of a semantic -, ( \ ;representation of the Q.'tteranc.~{/):'ecoveringthe explicit content and recovering implicit content. Su:ptg,sx:sinV(llved ~; ~~'. ~-\<\'~ "\\ in the rf!'~overy of the expl(~;<;:itcorrcerrs- compri::;>e)ltl1e Ii .r disambiguation (if any) of the s~mantic repres~ntation; 'I reference assignment. and the en:r~chmentof vag"1~taterms. The \i if imp;J..icit content of.,> an utterance is interpr$ted by the Page 116 recovery of possible implicature, poetic or other $,tylistic efrects: metaphorical expressions, iron.y and illocutionary ~orce~o Faced,)with having to "Explain •..what the writer intended when he remarks, 'Whatever may become of the sickle, the hammer can certainly be heard ringing across East Berlin'" (T.E.b.19S.9:3), a reader has first 'torecover the semantic representation o.fthe sentence. This is done automatically by a native speaker of the language and is likened by Sperber and Wilson (1986:177) to a decoding proct&ss...The reader will recognise "Whatever may become of the sickle" as a token of the conditional--concessive clause type and understand it as "no matter what becomes of thE! sickle". Tl;:l.e reader will autOll,taticallyi&ent~fY the :main clause as agentless, ,and the grammatical SUbject as the instrument that can 1::Ie\,heard ringing. The location is represented for )\ -'\ .> the reader ib. the adjunct of Ithe main clause. That this prQcess (the ~rammar of the langllage assigning ah appropriate sel'nantidrepresentation to the sentence) is automatic, is borne out by the fact that few native. speakers found the synta~ diffi~ult to understand (see page 44). In a case whe:t~ the 9'rammar assigns more than one semantic representation to a sentence., the reader is faced with the subtask of disambiguating the representation, ie seleqting the representatie,n that the writer 'has in mind. :Enthe hypothetical'case of a reader assigning, to the subordinate clause, something like the eXdlamativ~ "Whatever Page 117 Will becota9 of the sickle!", the representation would have to be discarded in favour of the conce.ssive-cortditiona.l' representation. The grammar of Engli:::hwould prompt a reader to do this, since eXclamatives of this kind are not usually followed by main clauses. None of the candidates selected a :representatio.nof the initial clause that was not 1\ \r' conditional ...concessive. ';L'hismaybe seen as further evidence that candidates at matriculation level do not find the syntax of the texts presented very ciifficuLt,,! Semantic representations alone are not sufficient for a full interpretation ofCa sentence. Sperber and Wilson (1986:193) argue that semantic representations are "incomplete" ill a numper of ways and that one of these ways is that they contain "indeterminate referring expres~~ions such as '~, pronouns •••" Determl.nlng•.. t .. what.. . certa,ln.. _. e>:;preSSl.ons-.\ ., refer to, '\\ becomes a further SUb-task in the recovery",of the explicit content of the sentewce. The use of the d~finite article: before botih "s:Lcklen and "hammer" indicates '"t.~at t.hewriter\\~ expects his readers to recover the sense of these terms from outside the text, ie they are to be treated by the reader as exophor-Lc references, since they a\renowhere recoverable fr,omthe text itself. In effect, a necessary condition needed to be met: the candidates and the examine:r;sneeded to share the assumption that the sickle and hammer are emblems of agriculture and indUstry on the communist flag. (See Chapter 3 page 45.) Sperber and Wilson (1986:193) argue that "semantic Page 118 representations· are inc()mihete logical formS, ie at best c->. fragmentary representations of thoughts (and) that .the~'are incomplete in more th9-n one way: not just because they contain indeterminate referrin9I expressions, such as pronouns, but also be.ca~se they contain underdefined constituents .•• " The reader in the process of inte:t'pretation has, as the third subtask in the. recovery of explicit IL content I '1:.0 enrich those terms that are incomple'te or vague. What is important here is that .vContextual infoJ::mation is o \ 1(/ needed to resolve what should be seen as thelis~~antic ))j incompleteness ••••n (Sperber and Wilson 1986:188)0 A matriculation oandidq,te writing this paper in the month of Novemksr"19891 would have to have been informed of the most recent. events in East!,Germall.Y,the 91fowil'l9move to unite with the West. Without this contextual knowledge the candidate would most certainly have interpreted the terms "can" and "be heard" as pertaining to the th,en present - in this case NOlvember·of 1989. An interpretation that saw the. haMer :ringing across Easl~Berlin in a building Si?ree during Novemberof 1t189 wQuld.bave been a gross miSinterpretation of the sentence that candidat.es needed to explain. They would have had to know that the sentence had been written at some time be.fore November1989 I since at the tiTne that this examination was written, hanmers were being used in East Berlin to" break down the "monstrous Wall". This is an interesting instance of history overtaking the Transvaal Education Dept:n::tment,since examiners are ca.lled upon t;o set Page 119 matriculation papers far in advance of the date on which they will be'written. ( 'i As in the subtask of reference assignment, a r~ader's ability to enri<,;h..vague or imprecise terms such as "monstrous Wall" is dependent on his knowing "more than just the grammar of English" (sinclair & Winkler, 1991). T:t~e enrichment of a term like "monstrous Wall" in a comprehension examination is dependent ,on the candidates' sharing assumptions about; the wall with the examilner. The third task a reader has to carry out to construct an interpretation of th~)sentence in question invo+ves the recovery of the implicit corrcent; of the sentence. This process demand.s that the reader carry out a number o! $uhtasks, one of which is recogn~zing the implicatures. conveyed in the sentence. Sperber and Wilson (1986:194) define an implicature as It'~ contextual assumption or halilication which a speaJcer, intending her utterance to be m-anifest;lyl::elevant, " ... manifestly intended to make manifest to the hearer." Assuming that the writer of the sentence-fl;"agmentunder .I d.iscussion (lines 26-28 of passage A in tl1.~1989 paper) intended it to be "manifestly rele.vantr~,(a full account of Relevance'Theorr is beyond the soope of the. task at hand) then it needs to be established what contextual assumptions the writer of the sentence "manifestly intended to make manifest to the reader". In the conditional-concessive clause "Whatever may become of Page 1li!O "~\ \\ the sickle", con.textual a~'sumptions can as: ,1 '>. something may.bedome of ,agric:ul/tu:;;e ".\ c ' \\ tbat}'this something ",has the possibili ty oJ:.~\ being disastrous, fortun:t:a.te, threaten.ing, .encouraging,. long-la.sting;, shprt-li v,f§!¢l, , '. I j \.) profitable, unpro.fi ta}>·lrr g •• and NO on. The list· is open, in Grice's terms, and, ~'the implicatum will « have just the kind of indeterminancy that many actual "'\ by Sperber impli<>ata do in f. aot s~.em to P"6S\""S." (Quot"d and wilson 1986:196.) ~ It is, .in effect, just thi$t indeterminancy of all the .' ~:_,-' .,;.::::::.:;:':'~!k;/ assumptions that a reaaer can make, that the writer of the J) . ij passage wishes to m9Jt~manifest to the reader. ]). matriculation candidate who did not reco~er the indetermi(~ancy of all the possibilities open to agriculture in East Germanyt ca;nnot be said t, 0 have recovered the " meanit)g'of "Wha.tevermaybecomeof the sickle ..• n r-'""''-----.. \ A reader who is told to explain what the wr.:i,ter intende:J...r¥ making .the remark he did, faces a further subtas'k.,\ This subtask is related to the style the writer has adopted in conveying his intended message. Sperber and Wilson ass~rt that a "chc:doeof styJ,.e is somethj~;ngthat no speaker or I' writer oan avoid" 0;"1986:217.:ff.'). "From the style Of. a communication it is possible to infer suoh things as what " the speaker takes to be the hea:r;er's cognitive capacities and level of attention, howmuchhelp or guidance she is Page 121 prepared to give him in processing her ut~terance, the degree of complici~1fbetween them, th~dr eI\\otionc\~closeness or distance. !I in choosing a style ther~:fore ~\'w-riter will make ~ > ~ \: ~ " some assumption about the reader' s abili\fiee~, a:p.dcontextual resources, and this is often reflected in w~~t.-the writer ,~.~. :\ \\ chooses to le'ave implicit. Briefly trien, in oX'derto recover the wtite:t.·'is full "ii'4tention((in the sentence beipg discussed; II the matriculation cal1'uidate\':neededto .recogrlize the \\ \t st~ilistio effects used by the writer of thl? sent~\nce. Th;j.s , rec,':>gnitiollis one of the neqessary-'conditions th<.\t need~ to be met in cons,i-~ucting a shared corrcext; between writer and ; .,1 \, , , reader~_ In ordE'arto conyey his uncertainty as ito the ,futJ1re of the 'I' \ \ • '. - ." sicklel• and, ill contrast, to assure ~.h\e read~r' 6·f the . '.-,'I positiV\e role being p~,ayedby the haner in l'!ast"Berlin, the Ii,,,, writer has :Droughtthe two emblemsof the communist flag i.rit;o :§ha:t~p juxtaposition. This contrast in tl:1~:;c-:p~cspective des:t.inies of the two major driving forces of a communist economy, has been brought about by the stylistic phoice the writer made. The use of the agentless passive voice t.n both clauses has allowed the hammerto assume an agentive role in subject position in the ma~~5tI~u~ej rather than the patient _:-__~;d('~~~-ll Ji role it inayhave occupied in an ~'~tive cOi'letrl1...,t;ion such as {tWecan hear the hanune;rJ::'ingingacross Eas't Berlin." The R j positional adjacency thus achieved. between "sickle" arid "hammer"signals the contrast the writer intended the r"Qader to recognise. Page' 'rhematriculation candidate faced with interpreting,the " (ij statement under discussion has still to,recover the, meaning: '.:; , conveyed in,the t\;70 metaphorical exprgssions c,ontained ill the statement. Sperher and Wilson claim however that no spedial abilities or procedures are required in the process. (1986:232ff.) Adopting their releVance-theoretic standpoint they assert that "metaphor and a variety of related tropes (e,. g. hyperbole, metonymy, synecdoChe) are simply creative exploitations of a perfectly gert~ral dimension of language use. " This "general dbnension" (the search for optimal relevance in a cOll\lnunicatioi~)"leads the speaker to adopt 01 ;j /-::--;'~ different occasi<;ms, a more or less faithful int.erpretat.ion of her thoughts. The result in some cases is literalness, il others metaphor." 'l'hewriter of passage :A (Appendix A page 2) agopted in the phrasing of the second clause of the sentence under examination, a metaphf"rical means to express the sound of the hanmlsr, and this added a fUrther dimension of meaning tl the concept tithehammer". liewrote that "the ht\'nunercan certainly be heard ringing acroSs East Berlin." The w,riter Ii has simply added a further implicature to the proposition that ua hammer can be heard" (across East Berlin) and the, recovery of this implicature is no different in prOcedural terms from the recovery of any other implioature(s) in the sentence. page 123 i'.) The matriculat{'r';>ncandidate in the recovery of a full interpretation of this sentence-fragment would have needed to b:ring together the encyclopedi.c entries uhanuner"and "bellt1, the latter recoverable from sante stereotypical.ol.' sche.matic knowledge of instruments that ring. In bringing together the two entries'the re,ader would have related the bell ringing (perhaps to pelebrate some occasion, in this case a building spree) to the hammer.being used to oarry out the building. Had the reader accessed some Unlikely instrument of ringing, such as "telephone", it "10uldhave been discarded as having no relevance to the "building sp:reell that was the immediate co...te~t. If Sperber. and Wilson are right in their explication of this /1 . • process I then the metft>nym~cterms "sickle" and "hanuner" \\ would have been acces~!ed in similar fashion to u!:ingingu. The interpretation of lnet:aphor is perhaps the :most common difficult task matriculants face,' and seen as being no different from the recovery of other implicl:t:{:information, - . ~ it ought t6' enj oy a d:tffer~nt kind of atti.~nti~n from what it does in the classrc)oms. The point will be deVeloped later. (See pages 145ff.) The recovery of thE~illocutionary force of an utterahce is yet another suhtask in the process of recovering the implicit information. that all utteX'ance carries. Sperber and Wilson argue howevert that a CQ1'lsidera:blenumber of speech- acts "oan b~ identified in terms of SOmecondition on their PagE! 124 ~>";\ explicit, content 1\ or i:mplicatures", and they deny tlla,t·'the interpret.ation of utterances involv~n9 such speech-acts t.-; requires any special pragmatic<\, principles or machineryI,) •••.,' " (1986: 2-4,€i) The answers most capdidates supplied to question 3 of~~the 1989 paper certainly support the first claim. ~~Few answers paid much attention to thej~'::firstpart of the question I "Explain what ,:youthink t1:iewriter 'J;lltendedwhen he c...-.:_;- remarks •••11 This widespread omission in~~cates that candidateS took for granted that a remark is, in. -the terms of Sperber and Wilson, "saying" somethi:ng, rather than "telling" or "asking". TheSe "generic*' acts, Sperber and Wilson argue, "are universal and appear to be genuinely candidateS, in taking so little notice of the instruction to explain the o/riter's intention, took for granted that remarking i~\saying something. Most assumed that the illocutionary force of the remark d~d not need explanation, sinca it was recoverable from the 'exPlicit use, by the examiner, of "remark" anyway. Another factor that lJ);ndssome weight to the argument that explaining what'!a remark does, is just too obvious to bother with, is that no candidate in the population sampled interpreted the claus~, "Whatever may become of,the sickle" as a question rather than what it is, Vi2;.•an assertive. In sununar'ythen, this most difficult, question required readers to construct .:ontextsnot strictly :t:',elatedto the grammar of"their langu~...e. This context had to do '<\1ith Ii \\ Page 125 sickles and ba:mnt~rsand what they have come to represent. (i Readers needed to have some sense of a ohanging East Germany /A __:l in November of 1989 and 'of,hringing~ounds associated with celebrations. They needed to recognise that the writer was inviting them to consider an ind~terminate number of Dossibilities. related to the future of agriculture. in 1i:ast Germany, and why the writer chose to Use certain Words like "ringing" ra'(:herthan omit them altogether. The question was /~ difficult 11&~causet/(l so much disparate information :\leededto be ma:(shalle~, and then used to draw conclusions about the state of affairs in East J3erlin) with Which matriculants in the Transvaal were unlikely to be familiar. The question is in a very remarkable respect, differ~~t from the other five '--, difficult questions. __oj) : \ Although readers needed to ca.rry out the sUbt~ ~ of I ! 'v recovering the illocutionary force of ~he utterance, in order to interpret it fully (see page 123 above), and although the question expliCiitly asked for comment on the writer's intention, candidates ignored the instruction to do sO for reasons offered above. They were not, rather iron,icallyt penalized for this omission ..The irony lies in the faclt that an argument can be made which. will claim tha.t it is this very task, relating the illocutionary force, or the "conununioat,iveinten.t'lto a Writer's stylistic chof.ces, that candidates find most difficult. The illO(.'~uti~maryf~~aie of an utteranoe should be seen here as reflecting illocutionary acts which the speaker of an ic Psge 126 utterance "~ ••can intend to perform by meanscof' it." (Sinclair ,and Winkler 1991:9n.) Sperber and Wilson, discussing the roles of intentionaJ...ityin communication, q.istinguish the "informative intention" of an utterance from the "conununicative in;t.ention". The:y,argue "•••thai:,:. cottllllunicatid.o.involves pzooducing a certain stimuIU~" intending thereby (an) Info:tlllativeintention: to inform t:h~ audience of something; (and~) Communicative intenti~n: to inform the audience of one's informative intention." (1986:29). Perhaps it is because the recovery of 'the comm.unicative intention is dependent on the recQ~ery of the informative intention that candidates had difficulty in answering questions which involved recovering the comm.unicative intentions they neeq.ed to. The remaining five difficult questions, by virtue of what they ask candidates to dO, compel them to reCoVer commundoatd.ve intent ,j.fthey are to be in a position to answer thy question at all. The remaining five most difficult questions. Questions 16 of 1989, 9 of 1989, 7 of 1990, 13 of 1990 and 18 of 1989 appear at a glan(1e to be very diffe\tent, put have already peen ,sho't'l1,nto be similar -i.nterms of the ,two taxonomies used to,classify them; ie they :t'equirlca.nqid.ates to recover -inferrable information (Inferrabl:es) artS)to integrate this with other information either recovered from the text itself (Integ:rative Implicit) or from the Page 127 candidates t -',encyci'opedio knlZlwledge(ln~borative). HoWever, the five questions mentioned above share a more specific demand. T~ley demand that candidates relate a d:;;:,,\ II pa.rticular stylistic)feature in i:\ given sent~nce to the communicative intRntion of(~he writer •.In order to do this, the communicative intent of each sentence has to be inferred and then related to the stylistic feature :f.:h~ltin all five cases is given. Question 16 of 1989 draws the readers' atten~~ion to the \i metaphorical expression df the canneries. ead.ng and defecating sardines (see page 45) and asks cclndidates to deduce from this metaphor the writer I s at~ t.tldeto canned s.ardineg. In a secdnd part to the question, candidates are asked to exp Lad.n what the writer means when ~le says, "The the cannlerie.s dipped their tails into the bay and not their mouths.i PUt an(;wthe;rway~..the reader had to account for Steinbeck's ituthorj;al t!l.side,.he had to explain steinbeck's chosen prefer/ene!elof one stylistic effect over another. This (')pe;t:"!a1:ilioninvolved the recovery of the possible styli,sti('.! effed~,s which mayhave been brought abou,t by the writliar 'using "m6uths" instead of "tails", and an inference, ; j) .' _ r\ .using the' alt¢rnat±ve possib:pi ty, as. to Steil'lpeck' s reason for, thel choi¢e\r' -- _" -_ of IItai/is"- - -, rather than "mouths". Seen this Ii way', as a qYtestion dem~pc1ingthe recovery of a stylistic /;::::. _ _ ,i; eI'.'fect and :l:henan elabol.'ation "on the author ~s intended !i i/ m~~ssq,ge"(~fWin 1986: 68) 1 the question illustrates the point made on pa~,\4;1:2'7above. Cand.idates experience the greatest i) difficul ty !~nrl!dating stylistic effects to the wr\~ter IS 11 \ co~~ununicati-, 'd ~re intent. The four re1ti1'liningmost difficult questions illustrate the s.(,tmedifficul, ty . l'then candidat~~s are asked to level critipism at a speaker' s USe of a particUlar word and to supply another more suitable onev as in question 9 of 1989, they are being ask~si to relate a particular stylistiC effect to the communicative' iptent of the speaker. TillE!senior west GermananaJ.yst, in explaining that "The Eas't (';ermanauthorities ar'.e making a big effort to improve the conditiens of life in theirupart,:, of Berlin ••. " has chosen .\ the word "big" to describe the effort being made J;lythe East ~, Page 129 Berliners. In attempting to level a d'l-:"iticismat this choice, a candidate would need to recognise the communicative intent of the speaker, and.to use his o~.m sense of how well or badly a stylistic chpice such as "big" conveys that intent. Although quest.ion 7 of the 1990 paper is apparently very different/! from the other four most difficult questions, ,; havd.ng(( .to do wJ.th•. the Q';'llvent1ons_ I _ _ i of punctuation marks (see pages 59-62 above), it can be argued that it is similar. 'rheuses of the semi-colon are not so conventionalized as l\ not to permit some cnc'Lce on the part of the user. Partridge (1983:45ff) lists..at least 11 uses of the semi-colon between principal clauseS, each designed to influence iilterpretation in par~icular ways. The two uses of interest in a discussion of this particular question, are the use to which the semi- colon is sometimes put in listing items and the use to which it is put in conveying a cumUlative effect. Used as it is'in lines 45 and 48 of Passage One (see Appendix C page 2) the semi-colon marks what Partridge calls "the cumulative developmen.t of •••exposition", in this caSe, some of the manifestations of the distant past in human nature. The intention is clearly more than simply providing the reader w.ith a lis't,since later on, the.writer does list stages on which each person acts h':'slife (lines 58';;'60),but chooseS in-his listing, not to use the semi-colon. The semi-colons in lines 45 and 48 are intended to convince the reader., by cumulative weight, of the soundness of the Pag~ 130 writer's argum~nt that "nature manifests itseJ_f at almost every moment of our daily life." The -ase ·of the semi-colon was a delib~rate stylistic; choice on the ....pa-rt of the writer and was intended to lend some force to his exposition. The memorandtd'll(Appendix D page 1) acknowledges this sty],istic use of the semi-colon., when it accepts that "Semi-colons help in accentuatili~g/hi9hlighting each pOint." As with th~ other qu,estions which make up the set of those that candidates found most difficul~, a reader needed to relate .aparticular stylistic feature to the writer's communicative intent. AS in question 7 above, the examiners have pointed to a stYlistic feature in question 13 of 1990 (the fifth most f.;· difficult que~i:ioh), and asked candidates to deScribe what they visualise from the simile. The second Part of the question asks hoW the alliteration helps to intensify the sinister effect of the simile. 'l'''1.eqt1.estionis similar to other difficUlt questions in that, it demands the rebovery of stylistic effects and deals with the r.elation between these and the cOllUllunicativeintent of the writer. There is a difference, however, and it may account for the question having been found slightly easier, by most Candidates. The difference is this: the examiners have identified for the candidates, what t:.beyperceive as the stylistic effect and the communicative intent. Candidates simply needed ln the second part of the question P1l9~131 to explain the;means by which the stylistic effect supported the qi:lll1l11unica£iveintent. Answering the :(irst part of the question involved the recovery of the, sh,ared featureS of an entry like "circular saws" and "flames". ,sperber and wilson (1986:227-237)3, in explicating the repoveryof metaphorical utterances make th-e point that " ••• any natural Qr artificial phenomenon in the world' can be used as a representation of some other phenomenon Which it resembles in some respects." tn "attempting .to recover the resemblance between "circular sawsU and "flames", the readel:"wouldproceed on the as~'umption that the two entities shared certain properties and that the writer had invited the reader to talce a large share of the responsibility of discovering these shared properties ~ Put. in Sperber and :~1.i.lsoni S ( 1986: 60) terms I "the cOll1l11unicatorcan merely e~edt to stir the thoughts '~'(" """'~ the aUdience in a certain direction." Candidates who took.~ ~'"-.;-. the trOUble to read the second part .9f the question before attempting an answer to the first, would have had their thoughts stirred ,lin a certain;,\ direction" viz. that the \ shared properties that the ex~htiners had discovered Were in some way "sinister.", and that the resemblance lay in ushaEp~ 3). jaggedv points ...." (Appendix D page candidates needed to create a new context in a way that "saws" and uflames" became a s~ngle entity which conveyeq 1t the sinister"impression it did 'for the examiners. The second part of the question do~s not eXpect the Page 132 cC\ndidate to reco~ercthe c:::omrnunicativeintent of the utterance Under scrutiny, nor does it require the candidate (/ to name the stylistic effect the writer has used.. The examiners' interpretation has been supplied arid the cand\idate .Ls asked to explain what it is about the Sj;;;i.iktic .j iI deviJce that creates a sinister efaectl. 75· ,,~', ,~«; ," Ti1;ts kind ,'ofquestion (18 of 1989 i1:.l'another) requires a second order of reco'verability; it requires the candidate to recover the communicative intent "of'the examiners crather than that of the writer of the passage. It is a moot point whether George Orwell assumed that readers w~uld recognise the alliteration he had used to I.~· create a «(%:upposedly) sinister impression and further, that they w.ould be able to identify fhe repetition Of sibilants. (see AppencUx D page 30) ,:!ihathe assumed his readers would associate the lsI with some sort- of.malevolence is also open to question. The examiners here are asking candidates to recover their own recovery of Orwell's stylistic effects a.nd communicative intent (hence "second-order recoverability" used above). The examiners have assumed that their readers will agree, with their interpretation ()and have, rather narrOWly I asked t~~ to recover part of their interpretation which, for the purposes of the question, they deliberately omitted, viz. that sibilants i:reate a sinister impression. The opinion expressed above, that the examiners "rather na:r:rowly" asked candidates to recover part. of their Page 133 interpretation, calls for a short justification. The opin,;i.on is based on an argument advanced~~y sperber and Wilson (1986: 189) whi.¢h Clat,.~sthat the disparity bet~een propositional content and full semantic: cerrcerrecannot be closed hy disambiguation and reference assigl'lmentalone. Certa.in terms need to be "enriched". "Sinister magnificenceoo is just suoh' a term and can be enriched in ways that something like "sinister impression" cannot. A semantic representation of "sinister magnificence" can be enriched by t·ht~freader's recovering properties of magnificence that include, for instance, "brilliance". This "enrichment" most certainly seems intended by Orwell in his manifest qse of \' ";\ such adjectives as "rosy", "fiery" and "red-l:it". To argue that "magnificence" is not part. Of th~t~chnical device "alliteration" is to take a narrow view of\~he eff~ct of sib;i.lance,Which is, after all, what the examiners were intent on getting candidate$ to recognise. The sixth-most difficult question is no differeJ(ltfroIn the ,;,:::_~ four questions discusseq?above, in respect of what i.e i/ demands from candidates. Th('y needed to relate the writer's use of two particular stYlistic devices viz. the use Of repetition and alliteration to the writer's communicative intention. Question 18 of 1989 quotes lines 29 and 30 of the passage by steinbeck and. draws the candidates' attention tqthe USe steinbeck h.as made of repetition and alliteratioxi. The question/directive asks candidates how the sound of the Page 134 sentence, if read aloud, would add 't7oits meaning. critical in this question is the expectation of the examf.nez-s, who, by using the phr aae "reinforces meaning" I require of candidates the recovery of more propositional content than is explicit,ly .stated in the sentence quoted. The wording of the memorandum (see Ap:p.endixB page 3j confirms that this was ind.eed what the examiners expected. It reads: "Sound here reinforces meaning. Monosyllabic words create impression q)c machfnes at work. Repetitiveness l' of sound is linked to the ~~peti tiveness 01{lthe production line.J1 :r..eaving aside the question. bf whether "Sound reinforces meaning" is equivalent to sound adl~s to meaning, one is able i from. the terms employed i~ ilie memonandum to establish that \1 the two "additions", the examiners expected, to the propositional content of the quoted sentence are $omething like tlmachi:c;",lare at work" and "the production line is repetitive". But how was a candidate to decide on these two additional item!s..of information to the exclusion of other possibilities? AS Sperber and wilson (1986~;.204) put it, "He could •••derive all the analytic implication~ of the explicatures, add to the context the Ef:ncyclopedic entries of all their cansti tuent conce}::,ts,explore the resulting set of contextual implications, and so on, indefinitely." (See Chapter 1, page 11 for Greene's description of the same Page 135 problem) • l/I· In an answer to this question, a candidate coUld have n recovered tHe quite plausible implication that the alliterative leI Was intended by steinbeck to convey the cacophony of noise that comes 'from canneries in operation. This interpretation would be confirrl\ableby X"eference to the. \f vt tJ,extsentend~,~ "The whole street rumbles and groans and lpereams and rattles •••I, Jrhe repetition of the word !landi! could well have been the Ii \1 ....• ~s;tyl~stic\\ device used by Steinbeck to convey a sen,se of the I! sequentiality of the operation, or to emphasise the variety of .the tasks involvea: or as a device ste~nbeck uses to enumerate similar activities. All three of these possibilities can be confirmed by reference td\ lines 26 and 27. "Then from the town pour Wops and chinamen and Polaks, men and Wdmt:!nin trousers and rubber coats and oilcloth aprons." This question on repetition is similar to the fifth-most difficult one based on flames and circular saws. :tt requires recoverability of two orders. The first, recoverability of the. relationship between stylistic effects and writer' s comhunicative intent; ~nd second, recoverability of stylisti.c effect and the examinep;,s'own interpretation of the writer's communicative intent. This chapter has outlined in some detail what it was that candidates had to do to answer the six most difficult quest.ions i'cor:rectly". But do questions ~hich ask o Page 136 II , candidates to infer what exam.ine:csinfer' of a writer's intent from st~listic features, selec:ted by the exam~;hers" actually meaSure "comprehension"? The question is taken u~ '\ in chapter 6l' 'l1he chapter above has attempted t.o show that II " ..five of the six required a parti.cular kind Of l.nfe!;encing procedure: and in this attempt, has identified a link between "difficulty" and "implicitness". The two notions are very general and require considerable refinement. Research on the 1\ kinds of (IUestions that are of a "high" or "low" order is pa.rt of this refining process and some of the problems being addressed in this research are discussed in the fol1owin~ chapter. Page 137 CHAPTER SIX. \.r\ This finalctlhapter attempts to relate recent :tesearch in Britain to some of the issues raised :tnthis study and makes s(,.imeol::!:~ervati()ns,claims and suggestions. TESTING READING COMPREHENSION SKILLS. 1n,on9'oin9 research, ;J Charles Alderson,et al continue t,o ask such questions (amongst others) "as to whether there is any justification for viewing oompr'ehens.Lcn as;a set. of ?c?parable skills or whether there is any d4fuonstrable correlati.on between diffi9ulty in a reading test and "high" or "loW" order questions (1990:425) .. Although Alderson is concerned with issues not raised in this stu,!lY,sUCh as the content validity of reading tests and the problems associated with whether a question is of a "high II at'....I!law" order, there are cenmcn concerns worth' mentioning. Three particular preliminary conclusions draw'n by these researchers are, to SOme extent, borne out in this investigation·. t. Perhaps 'the most unoontentious preliminary conclusion is that "It is unlikely that any test item can be unambiguously said to be testing anyone skill." (1990:436) The word "skill" is problematic and Alderson uses it When referring tOI by nowt traditional taxonomies SU(;:has Bloom's (1956), or Munby's (1978). Alderson (1990:437) implicitly draws a distinction between "ability", i'skillslC and " Page 138 ilprodessest~ w~el1h&remarks that, \,jMUOh reading researoh uses tests of oomprehension in oLder to make inferences about reading ability, reading skills and reacl.ing prd{~esses." But whatever the d.f:stinctions are, Alderson conced.es that, "The tlleoretioal nature and status of these skills, and their interrelationships are far from clear ••• GU (1990:425)~ This pres~nt investigation has attemp'te candidates are asked to proq.uce, \ an answer in writfng (see Ghapter 1 page 3), it does suggest that "difficulty is often associated with knowledge. of particular lexical i-Cems.·~ The "particular lexical items" that provided Transvaal matriculants with some difficulty ~ere only of two kinds though. l In quest.:i..on;3 Qf 1989 the items "hammer" and "sickle ' were not elaborat~d on sufficiently, (see page 44) and candidates were cqJ;l,FI"'rtfently~warded 19W mq,rkf~\.(.Lexical items of this ! ' \ kind thel>t.",:whichare r.i.chin connotation, or carry specific symbolic meanings, if included in test questions, will make for some difficulty among candidates. This is not to' say that the test question which uses items of this sort is necessarily a good discriminator. In fact, this particular item, for the sample population used, yielded a discrim- ination index of only .347 f indicating just how widespread 'the difficulty is, of lexical items such as these, among both nood':1 and weak candidates." The Second kind of lexical item that provided candidates with some difficulty in the examinations scrutinized, was the fltechn:i.cal"word. 1:n questions 16 of 1989 and 13 of 1990 the terms "figure", "simile" and "alliteration" occur. Items such as these woUld .norraallybe taught intensively in Transva::l,lschools I "\ indeed both "simile" and "alliteration" are part of a section'in 'thenew Standard FiVe syllabus (to be implemented in 1993) under the heading "Figure.s of Speech." But the Page 141 prob;J..emwith "technical terms" of this kind 19 neSt that candidat.es don't kno\\~what they mean. The problam (as e:xplained~in Chapter 5) is that examiners interpret these st.ylistic devices (and' others, such as the semi-colon) in terms of their understanding of how these devices work in conveying a message. Often the candidates· interpretations <-;~) , Of how stylistic dev~Jces work are at odds with the interpretations of the examiners. In respect then" of ongoing research in the field o·f reading, (and all that it entails) the present investigation appears o to confirm that it is unlikely that a s,ingle test item can be said to be testing any single "skill". It is very likely tnat questions which ask candida,tes to. image or g_uestions, which involve affective responses are approached in different ways. l) I} . SOtW.CES OF DIFFICULTY IN~JT. E. D. COMPREHENSION TESTS. 1/ /.? Besides the difficultyuassociat:~d with particular lexical items referred to above, other sources of difficulty are manifest in the two T.E.D. examinations that were the obj ects of, this investigation .. The syntactic complexity of the questions set or the fragments of text from which the questions were derive.d, cannot be rUled out as a factor which contributes to difficUlty of processing. \:' Embedding of the kind illustrated on page 48, where a relative clause embedded in a conditional clause, Which is '2:::::::::, itself embedded in an adverbial clause, as in the case of question 1:6 of 1989 Q could have led t.o candidates L not recovering the iU,!,lmet.aphor. The bast candidate of 1989' avoided trying to explain th.e metaphor. As an answer; she wrote: steinbeck means that the figure of speet:h1"i'~,edis apt and fitting. - One can infer (of course t '.'many other in! erences can be drawn - see pages!'51 and 52) that she chose to avoid explaining the metaphor; I despite t1'!£';i examiners' incl'uding it in the " rubric, becauee she found the embedding too burdensome to darry in working memory. Interrupting cons+ructidona, evident· in question 13" of 1990 (see pagE1 60), may have contributed to a reader's inability J) to vi~uaiize vividly the flameS escapint;' "from beneath the cowls of foundry chimneys." Backward referencing such as that demanded from candidates in question 18 of 1989 may have proved difficult for some candidates. The question is phrased. in such a way that the Q-clause, positioned as it is at the end of a long rubric, necessitates the recovery of a whole sentence distanced from the demonstrative, .,t.!l,.i.s"by two explanatory sentences (see page 71). G.. Reference assignment was most certainly a soUrce of difficUlty for candidate 3B in 1990. See pages 59 ~nd 60 for a full di.scues Ion of his problem. The two. worst candidates in 1989 had Some difficulty too, in assigning reference, Page 143 Whenthey· were unable tel recover the meaning of ·'.TheWall" (see pages 101 and 102) II Someof the difficulties that !{ cand}dates experienced !ii.nthe tt..ropapers examin~d in this study may have been t~lacher- or examiner-ind.uced. !I ,,' .'.' " cert'ain questions wer~'phrased in such a way that candidates may have had dif,ficul/ty interpreting them. Question 12 of ~}1990 with .~ts unusuail.ly long instI,'uction, its unnec~ssary< nominalization and.the omission af a 90njunction , which would have"made a clausal relationship clearer, could have :been rephrased ].1'1 such a way as to make the instruction potentiallY,;/lesfs confusing ....see pages 791rand80 for a full Ii discussion iif the question. II· Examiners were not care.;ful enough in their phrasing of questionl'; 1,of 1989 and 20 of 1990. The first question of the 1989 paper asks candidates" for a single characteristic I' '" differen.ce betwfien East and west Berlin, but examiners if .' e~pected more than a single difference (for two marks)'~ Question 20 of 1989 refers to "the pronoun" in the sentence wY'ourfather and myself are not happy". The determiner might be perceived as a pronoun by candidates who had net. 'been taught a newer terminology. But teacher-induced difficulty, probably far more pervasive and pernicious tb.an the infrequent careless. phrasing in examinations, is the unintentional and covert encouragement pupils receive, to use the stock response. Answers to \' questions which USe "technical terms If such as \)l~ "alliteration", "simile", or eve~,)."semicolon" t s~em to 17' P9ge 144 [" reflect a too-ready willingness on the pa:t'tof the ~ta~ker \< pupil to supply a definition for the terrtl,i:r:respectiv~ of the question asked. (See pages 66,67 and 73.) Pupils ma~' be subj~cted to the learning of these terms fOl: their own sake, rather than being taught the termsq.s useful means to certa in ends .. certain major assumptions are made by examiners, as'1;,owhat constitutes' "shared knowledge" between The most obvi(.Y~s1,nstance of an assumption of this1.\ kind is evident in t!ile.examiners ' use of words such .as "sense" or "t;eohni.ques" (see pages 81,82 and 103). These are words that will, in .the normal courSe of teaching in Transvaal schools, take on a particular conununicative value within the (j discourse of comprehension testing. There are, however I noze critical assumptions made by examiners. It is a questionable ',practice to assume that an interrpretatioll which Is arrived a.t during the course of the setting of the paper, will necessarily be similar to the interpretation a candidate will arrive at during the writing of a paper. In a public, school-l.eaving examination, of course, items cannot be tested beforehand. Chapter 5 is devoted to the kinds of inferences that needed to be drawn in the interpretation or the most difficult questions and what emerges there, quite clearly, is t.he candidatesB need to relate a particular stylistic device (or effec·t.)to the writer's conununicative intent. This Page 145 int~rpretive procedure is subjective :t.o say the least, and other plausihle inte~l?retations of the items which caused . :' ~. f/ this kind qj: difficulty are offe:red on pages 132ff. The major finding in this investigation relates to the point "' made in, the previous pi3,:ragraph. Five of the six most difficult questJons were questions in which eXA~ne:rs had rela\ted a stylistic feature to a writer' s intent and c.~sked candj.dates to explain the relationship. (See page 127ff.) Matriqulat~:on candidates in the Transvaal, whowrote the 1989 and £990 English Higher Grade Language and 1/ /1 comprehe.m'Jsionpapers, !:)ere oonfzontredwith having to explain ~! and confi(rmthe inferences examiners,made Whensetting the Ii paper. T~~iskind of inferencing is probably onl\{ peculiar to " comprehe~\siontesting, and maybe called "second-order u infere~c~t~. I, Asse:rtJ.on!:.'such as the one "aboveserve only to raise further " \1 issues. O\Q.esuch issue if~ the problem of trying to pin down \~.~ \ .."'.. \ exactly wh\atcompz-ehensLon is. The interpretatIons which I.' examiners qpnstruct as answers to the questions they set are dependent on',variable factors, such as the training in reading that cA~flminersundergo. Since examdriez.s in the \' Transvaal are U~UallYappointed from the ranks of practising teachers of Eng~\\ish"the training that these teachers .\ II receive becomes~\.itallY imt.'ortant in the process of trying '\ to understa-nd Wha.\\it is thc\t QQnstitutes, in their view, \\ "comprehensio11U• \~n analyshl of the ,six most difficult .'\ \\ questions in these ?ompr.t:~henslonexaminations, :reveals a \\ \\ \ If dominant concern with metapho~~cal expression, stylistic choice and traditional "figures of speech." These concerns charact,~rize a training in English Literature at teacher- training institutions and this training is a powerful factor in determining what it is that school-leavers are asked to do in cO!nprehension and language examinations. In'the two comprehension and language examinations ,.that are the $Ubj.act of this investigation ( what a schoel-1eaver is asked to do with the most difficult que'stions is to read and interpret-in ways 1;b,atEnglish Literature graduates read and -c: ~_I interpre.t. The advisability of such practice in examinations in this country at present and in the future, is questionable. Comprehension and language examinations ought to be testing lari9uiage·'Use in ways that are not based on narrow Iiterary interp:l:etations. The sta.te of education at· present in the Republic of South Africa is in tUrmoil and the status of English as an "official" language is not assured ill a futurE;!:dispensation. Of course it is likely that English will be one of the languages in which futUre school-leavers are examined. This likelihood alone should prompt teavhers of English to examine critically the kinds of questions they ask, which, certainly in the case of these :most diffi.cult items,. define what "compr~hensionil skill in examinations is taken to be.• Having expressed this major note of reservation about the advisability of asking the kinds of difficult questions that were asked in the two examinations under (I~crutiny, I should 1\\ 'Ii \\ .\ Page 147 1:::':-; add that there are speakers of English within the present school system who will beS<~alled on in language and ~ " comprehension examinations t9 construct new. coittexts from new ~;n..iunfamiliar passages of prose. For this group of school ...leavers, training in the kind of comprehension question this study identifies as difficult, might prove profitable. rrwo very general suggos,:tibriscan pe' made to aid teachers preparing candidates who wll1 face the maJor ~:_:'.> " •. ./!;' difficulties of context construction and relating styl~s.~.,c I( II II effect to a writer's communicative intent. ), fl 1~\ 1. In .o::t:"derto help candidates Overcome the difficulties IF <) they face in What, throughout this study, has- been .called IUcontext constructionVi, a far greater amount of time and effort needs to be spent in extending and enriching studeh'ts' "domai:n knowledge" ~ This kind of knowl.edge,.can be \ r) understood to incorporate th~ J{t~b~11edgeof those pa:tticul~r lexical items which, in particUlar contexts, are rich in connotation or carry "pecific symbolic meanings (referred to most recently ,on page 140). Investi9at~:ng the relation$hip bet~een domain knowledge an~ aptitude, Yekovich et al (1990:275) report that Ita high \.:~-, amount of domain knowledg~ allowed low-aptitude individuals the ability to make rather complex inferences and to perform f I) , _ _ __(I;/ the same as their high apt).tude~,,-.g~~}l'terparts..• Apparently, domain knowledge not only makes relevant inf.ormation accessiblle to cognitive processes, but it also exten.ds one 1 S ct processing capabilities within the domain." \ ,~.g.,,, ,;, \ \ G Finding'} of this kind and "vi ',noe preSented in tllis st"dy Sh01Uldconvince Transvaal 1j:.duca\~ionDepartment planners and insl:?ecto~s and examiners of the \mportance of encouraging \\ - \~ teal~hers in English Classes to SPe.\~d as much time and effort as 'they can in context c.onstructio~ or enhancing their '~\ ,: .'\. . .. - ',' stud.ents I domain knowledge. Xn~' rfe&t tbJ.s means that , ' ~ tea(~herS should he malting a very real b.nc;ldetermined ed:fort to ~jet pupilS reading and talking and \o.':C-'i,.tingubout as wide a r.mge of top~cs as they possibly can. 'R.estricti ve sy.llabuses that "have to be covered" must; not. be aJ,lowed to "', imp!~dec.the business of providing pupils 'With vast amounts of dom(;tinknoWledge and i;opportunity for context const:ruction that~ allow such things as hammersand sickles to 'he meal"lingfully inte~~preted. 2. The second suggestion that teachers might like to oorrsLdez in their pr~~:aration Of English mother-tongue iJ 11 ' speakers for cOlUpreh",~~'~ion.questions of the kind that ask pupd.Ls to relate a particular stylistic: effect to ace writer t s communicative ~".tent, is this: direbt pupils onto the "high road" of writing. Asking teachers to approach comprehension teaching via wri1:.ing may appear to be a round-about way of getting to the des1:ination, but i\ereiter and Scardamalia (1983: 25) in describing where the "high" road of writing leads, ~)cplain thai:: children on the high road, we believe, start to think about what they are writing down on pape.r as having Peg';! 149 relations to various other things in their minds. Most importantly t they may begin to s,ee, tha,t there is a relationship, and not neces$,arilY"'an identity, between what they write and- what; they :mean. Accordingly, they .may begin to devote mental e:t:forttoward enhancing this relationship •••,Writing becomes a tasl\:.of re1i)resenting meaning rather than of transcribing langua BIBLIOGRAPHY. Adendorff ,R. O. (19:~!H33). "Political cartoons as a ReSource in the .ESJJ classro1pm. II In The Ettie Reporter Vol 14 No.2. I Alderson, ,J.C. \\(1984). " Reading:' a reading problem or a language prpblem?tI' In (eds) J. C. Alderson & A. 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Vol. b Hillsdale; N.J: Lat-.'renceErlbaum •. W:t.1dowson,H.G. (1978). Teaching Language as communication. Oxford University Press. WicldoW.son,H.G. (1979).· Explorations in Applied .Linguistics. Oxford universit.y Press. Wilson, .C.R.. and Hanunill, Co. (1982). "Inferencing and comprehension in ninth graders reading geography textbooks". In: Journal of Reading. 25. 424~427. Yekov;tch, F .R. et al (1990). "The Influence of Domain Knowledge on Inferencing in Low-Aptitude Individuals." In (eds) Graesser,A.C. & Bower, G.H. Inferences ,and ~axt ,Pom.prehension. San Diego: Academic Press, Inc. Yule,G. (1981). "New, current and ~displadhdr ent.ity reference". In Lingua Vol 55: 41-5'2. North Holland Publishing company. I J ENGt:tsn :FlRST WGUAGE HIGHER. GRADE (Second Paper - Comprehension and Language) HC 12/2 [nu~E~~T1~ PAPER CONSISTSmOFIO PAGFS I HG12/2 HG 12/2 HG 12/2 HG 12/2 HG 12/2 HG 12/2 HG 12}Z HG 12/2 flO· 12/2 SENIOR CERTIFICATE EXAMINATION NOVEMBER 1989 P.T.O. Copyright reserved (~ \! " ENGLISH FIRST LANGUAGE HIGHER GRADE ii (Second Paper ~ / Comprehension and Language) HG 12/2 TRANSVAAL EI)UCATION DEPARTMENT SENIOR CERTIF ICffTE EXAMINATION NOVEMBER 1989 TIME: 2i noil-"-s" - .~ This paper consists of four sections. ALL questions ar!fCOMPULSORY~ It is suggested that you spend at 1east 15 to 20 minutes stuay'ing the passages and the questions before you attempt any answers. Although passages A~ B and C deal with different aspects of three major cities, there is no need for you to look for a common theme linking the different sections of the pape.r. Wherever possible, use your own words. SECTION"A " In the years after the Second World War, Berlin has developed a very specific character that has establiShed it as a un ique cHy. This extract, and the questions, exami,ne that char.ecter., West Ber1;n is a place that hardly ever /1 \i sleeps. The pubs only close for a ~ne-hour \\ sweepout, and the Ku'damm is .never empty. )! Writing in the '30s, Thomas Wolfe called the two-mile~long thoY'oughfare.o the largest coffee house in Europe. The de- scription still fits, though the human cur- rent along the boulevard has changed since Wolfe·s day. ausinessmen wearing 10 tight-fitting dark suits (and too much aftershave) rub should~rs with flame-haired punks, ageing hippies in mink-trimmed . leather hats and sign carriers advert;sirtg the New Eden night club. 15 The frenetic activity 1$ a leftover f\"OU1 the old Ber1in, wh ich in the I gDs and '30s I WaS considered to be the world's most ef~ fervescent; most creative capital. But the steady ebb and flow is also a tesult of 20 more modeten conditions, a tind of uncon- sci ous strateg~1 for deal ifig with toe" con- finement, iso1a"~.ion and uncertainty that are part of life do an enclave 110 miles removed from West Germany and surrounded 25 by a Communist country. Whatever may become of the sickle" the hammer can Certainly be heard rihg'ing across East Berlin> which is embarked on a building spree thQt wi111ast until the end of the century, The government of ENGLISHFIiRSr :(.ANGUAGEHG (Second Pa\">er) k: -;> fiG 12/2 3 Communist Party Leader Erich Honecker o hopes that the face-lift will alter' East Ber ltns image as the drab socf al t st sister,.of the glamorous, glittering West. 35 Explains a se.nior West German analyst: "The East German authorities are making a big effort to improve the conditions of life; in their part of Berl in and el iminate the im- " pression of abnormality. They want people 40 to come. in past the monstrous Wail and-"'" .~ find an attr ect tve , 1ively capital that has the normal life Of a European metropolis~" In many ways, East Berl in has that a] .. ready. Unter den Linden ;s one of Europe's, 45 and perhaps the world's~ most beautiful boulevards, running more than three-quar- ters of a mile from the Marx-Engels Bridge (( (formerly the SchlossbrUck~) with its eight heroic marble sculptures, lo,the metal rail- 50 ing that blocks acce~s to th~ Brandenburg Gate. It is a street of charm: store windows dfsplay1ng Meissen prcelain in exquisite blue-and-white patterns, antiques, shops offering fine prints, art gal1eries .where ab- 55 stract paintings sell for up to $1,800. ~rom: TIME (18 August 1986) 1. According to this extract, what charact.erises the difference between West and East? (2) 2. The extract states that the 'frenetic activity' (line 15) in West Berlin may be attributed to two factors. What are these? (2) 3. ExpLin what you think the writer intended when he remarks ... 'Whatever may become of the sickle, the hammer carr certainly be heard ringing acr os s East Berlin •••• (1 ine 26) (3) 4. In your own words, and in one. sentence, swnmarjse the .,explanation the sentor West German analyst offers of the improv\>ments in t;t.st Berl in (lines 36~42). (2) <~. ', \ -, '\ I, 5. What does the change of name, from the Sc~}ossbriicke tU,t 1"h~ Marx-Engels Bridge, tell of the Communist takeover aftel: the war?~ \-::. (2) 6. What do yOU understand by the term, I a sen; or west German analyst '? (l;ne 35) (2) 7. The writer refers to West Berlin as being an 'enclave' (Hne 23). In our medi a the term is often used wi th reference t;o/jJa 1vi s Bay. What does this word mean? " (2) 8. Why is 'monstrous' (line 40) such an effective word for the analyst to use in describing the Berlin W~11? (2) P.T.O. M12AA~ ~-=------~------~~----~ (Second Paper) H6 12/2, 4 9. The West G'~~rt)lananalyst speaks .of the 'big effort' (line 37) being made to improve the conditons of lHe in East Berlin. 9.1 What stylistiIJ criticism rri~y be levelled against hls USe of .the word 'big' tn this context] (2) 9.2. Supp1y a. more suitable word with which to replace it. (2) 'SECTION B In his book 'Arabia through the looking glass', Jonathan Raban makes a study of the Arabs and their culture. In this extract he has just arrived in Qatar in Saudi Arabia. His impressions make for interesting reading. I went out to look at the place for myself. It was at that 'moment in the even iog when the low sun goes squashy in the Gulf and coats everything with a ~pft thick light the colour Of broom. It gilded the wailing six-lane highway. It gilded the sandy roadsid\i\ where I walked. It gilded the long trail of garbage - the crushed Pepsi cans , discarded Frigida'lr\~s, torn chunks of motortyre. cardboard boxes, broken f an-be l t s lying in the just like ~nakes, the bUiJding rubbl~~ polystyrene pack'inq-b l ocxs , and a rather long-deadl\goat. So many cars had.. 10 been junked .at the side of the road, and reared, rusting, on their axles, that it seemed legitimate to wonder whether people here threw Pepsi cans out of cars or cars out of PepSi cans. There were ruins~ but they were not picturesque: squalid littlerectangles of mud whose wall s had fallen out, leavlng a 15 pathetic detr itua tn view - a few s ta tned and ripped cushions, a child's graffito, a wrecked tricycle.l! A very pregnant., yellow, vulpine bitch - a degenerate descendant] of the Saluki family bared its teeth at me from the heap of 'rubbi sb which it was defending; and a rat the size of a domestic cat ambled coolly 20 through a pile of fluttering multi~coloured rags. t:t.looked more like the SCene of a r acent civil war than a utopian city-state. Yet there 'liaS something about it which I recognized - the careless absentmindedness of the very rich. No one Ieaves more squalor in his wake th.an a passing millionaire: 25 some hireling wi 11 c1ear up the mess afterwards, and to be tidy is to r eveal a str~iij( of mean thrift. Really l avi sn 'Haste is one of the most certain of all signs of wealth. The man who can afford to create stinking eyesores. then negligently turn his back on them, is displaying his money just asarrogantly 30 as the man whO furnishes his house with solid gold doorknobs and diamond-crusted coffee tables. In a poor country, the junked cars would have been either stripped or restored; the Frigidaires lovingly salvaged; even the cardboard bo~es would have been drayged away to make improvised dewn lngs. Here they 35 were simply litter - the overspil1 of some vast and smelly garbage bag. As'the corpulent rats had evidently dtscover ed., ' this 'was a handsome treasury of filth. '\, . 10. From the context or the passage decide what the colour of broom (line 4) must be. (1) 11. The writer refers to a child's 'graffito' ~line 16). Most of us are l more f~mi1iat" with the.word Igraffiti • What does it mean, and What is the difference betweer';'these two words? (2) ".,. , ,I...,;0-..-_--_"',M12AAM ....---- .....- ...... ------...... ENGLISH ·FIRST"lANGUAGE JAG (Second Paper) ~ HG.1212 ,5 ii II 12. I It looked more 1ike the scene of a recent chi 1 war than a utopi an city state. I (1 ine__21-22 J Cl~;!"~>'::'_-;:" 12.1 What justificat;oll does, Raban ~~\ve for 1ikening this scene to the scene of a recent elvil war? (2) 12.2 What does 'utopian' mean. and what justification can you find in thl? text for anyone to think of Qatar as utopian? (2) ,i 13. txpl ain the paradox foil'ndin the final line of the, extract. (2) t SECTION C An altogether different street +s Cannery Row, made famous by John Steinbeck in his book of the same name. The following edited extract opens the novel: /'"\, CANN:RY ROW in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a qUJlity of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is th« gathered and scattered, tin and iron and rust and 5 spl tntsr ed.wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots an'.d junk-heaps, sardine canneries 'of corrugated iron, • honky-t cnk s, rest aur ants , and little crowded groceries, and laboratories and flop-houses. Its inhabitants are, , as the man once said, nwhO~es, pimps, gamblers, and 10 sons of,bitches," by which he meant Everybody. .Had the mar(lboked through another peep-hole he mignt have said: "Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men," and he would have meant the same thing. In the morning when the sardine fleet has made a catch, the purse-se iners waddl e heavf ly into the bay blowing thei)' whistles. the deep-laden boats pull .in a~aiDst the coast where the canneries dip their~tails inte~/the bay. The figure is advisedly chosen, 'for if ,. the c;anneries dipped their mouths into the bay the 20 c?r"'iedsardines which emerge from tpp:iother end would DE- metaphorically, at least, even more horrifying. T1en cannery whistles scream and allover the town c;' men and women scramble into their clothes and come running down to the Row to go to work. Then Shining 25 cars bring the upper claSSeS down: superintendents, accountants, owners who disappear into offices. Then from the town pour Wops and Chinamen and Polaks, men and women in trousers and rubber coats and oilcloth aprons. They come running to clean and cut an,d pack 30 and cook and can the fish. The whole street rumbles and groans and screams and rattles while the silver rivers of fish pour in out of the boats and the boats rise higher and higher 1h the water un:t;n they are empty. The canneries rumb1e and rattle ~nd squeak 35 until the last fish is cleaned and cut and c06ked and canned and then the Whistles SCream again and the dripping, smelly, tired Wops and Chinamen and . Polaks, men and women. straggle oUt and droop th~ir ways up the hi11 into the town and Cannery Row 4,0 becomes itself again - qUiet and magical. Its normal .. " life returns. The bums who retired in disgust under the black cypress-tree come out :~ sit on the rusty pipes in.the vacant lot. Doc strolls from the Western Biological Laboratory and crosses the street 45 to lee Chong's grocery for two Quarts of beer. Henri P.LO. M12AAM 1 6 ,,___~_:~_.~....r..;..~_.·_•.~...~_;....;_)t.,~_N_G_m_m_E_._AG_...... __ H_~_._12...1....; ....J.,../J the painter noses like an Airedale through the junk i in the gra.ss~grown lot for some part or piece of wood or metal he needs for the boat he is building_ Then the darkness edges in. and the street 1ight comes on .500 in front of Dorais .. the lamp which makes perpetual moonl ight in Cannery Row. Cal.lers arrive at Western Bi.ologica.l to see Doc, and he crosses the street to Lee Chong'S for five quarts of beer. Before answering the questions, read this extract again. Paying careful attention to Steinbeck's particular style and to his USe of figurative 1afiguage. II (i 14. HOVJ can ygu tell from this description that Steinbeck is not so much a t(aveller passing ,through, but r.ather someone who intimately knows lind loves the place he is writing about? (3) 15 look carefully at Steinbeck's use of the word 'waddle' to describe the fishing boats' entry into the harbour (line 15), Why;s this a particularlly effective word for him to have used in this context? (3) 16 Examine his comment: . 'Tne figure ;s advisedly chosen, for if the cannerieS dipped their mouths into the bay the canned sardines which emerge from the other end vru Id be, metaphorically at least, even more horrify1ng.1 (lines 18 to 2~) 16.1 What can you deduce from this of his attitude to canned sardines? (2 ) 16 ..2 ~xplain what he means when hp says, 'The fig.ure is advisedly ~hosen'. (2) 17. In describing the start of the 'tJot"king day in the canneries, Steinbeck beg·ins three successive sentences with the word 'Thell', Normally such repet l t ion would be frowned upon. Examine Steinbe.rk's deliberate use 1 of t!,is stylistic device. What does he aCh.ieve by H? (2) 18. IThey' come runni ng to cl esn and cut and pack and cook and can the I·· fish.' (1 ine 29) Here, too, Steinbeck uses repetition, this time of ~~I the word 'and'• He also.uses alliteration. If this sentence were read aloud, how would the sound of it add to its meaniH'g? 19. SUMMARY A publication devoted to Steinbeck and his work is being planned. A footnote on Cannery Row is required. Write a factual report on life on Cannery R()w~ based only on the information given in' the passage. Include all the details you think necessary, .but confine your report to no more than 100 words. Pay particular attention, also, to the audience-o'f -stui.fents of l t ter atur-e for which the publication is intended.~ ?_, (15) -----M12AAM ...... '-~-----...... ------f ."""",,__,~:,~.-~~------""" HG 12/2 7 SECTION 0 In this section you are asked to examine the following TWA advertisement as well as the two cartoons reproduced from 'Punch'. In the TWA advertisement the paragraphs have been numbered 1-10 for your convenience. " ..-~..,.,~...... -- CARTOON 1 "Height thirty thousandfeett flying tlm« f(li4/' and a half hours •.. we hope you will enjoy your flight,'· I ~ CARTOON 2 I t.Nbll~H + IRS I LANGUAGE HG 8 Even at 41,000 ft,~--... _(Se_CQ,_~d_pa_per_)__ --HG-12-/2.-J,-...--i were not above criticism. (1 Irs 1I0tMnAn~ for ai1'!;'IIutlJ hint their mila. B UI h~fJIfIllltf) Il(tuaily ffluam Ihm wish monty? ~ At TWA, 1411 ~,'PUJ:;.;$ group almen 411t;/ fJlOI1UfI tIIhomakt ,h,i,. Ii,ing by'fiying 01Wp14l1tJ. Tbti1'jD'" To Ill/1M what itl lilll hting a )l1J.jrmger a" TWA. 3 Ana altbDMgb if, "garded 4J ~IU qf the fYilUt imptJrl41'lt j(Jli~~d1l the airlint, J/Jf DlwiouJ ftafOn.t 'Pdy/tfIJ PtOp!" ;11(11) who thtJ are. " Th" plZ] Irw tbtir flight/ike 411] (Jlh" p4tJmger. They (htdl i71 likt ~'dJ fJthtt"prwmgn: Anti ~"(lOff boarti,.thrjrt maledlike 4'IIJ 0/13" pa.t.rellgtr. 5 In fad, Ih, only dijftrmcf btlWtm th(ffl and !Jlher paJ.Jmgm if fhat, tbf'tJughout the '/OUr:<6I!j, tbtjO bl lakin! ff liS. . \\ 6 On thl airrraft, JW? ;ilJtan(~ Ihdfi Iod not only at 'hi food and win«, but alto al the date I)n the tn4ga%illtJ. (L4Jt WU/(Slltw! ls b.ad 1ftwfJ 7 They'll aJJe.rJ the !Imidardt of tht i1t-JIightur~ict. (SometimtJ 6.y playing the dtrll4ntiing !fJJ.u1IgrrJ 8 And they'O ,7uticlIltJU.fly check the details. Small thing! fiJu wf~ether (tara (DffU is offered before you bave to ;uk for it, 9 Fi"a!~";, when fht notiJ an ,;ompltmi. rhry ga :'t1tO a report. A "pOrI lJ-'hzch goes to !D1J'Uonl who rhinks that a gtJod wa:i Ni run an airline is :0 start .£rom. tbe " paumgeri point olr;ie'fJ). 10 He will ,'Tad the 1'(/)ort, the good points and the 6ad. and h~!1 .:JC1 on it. His the head o/the air/i'll. The Cht:irman a/TWA. TWA For the, bert of Afuerica. 20. What image of its ai.rl,ines does. the rWA adver t isement wish to promote? (2) 21. 21.1 What 'marketing strategy does TwA employ to ensur-e that passengers believe this i~lage1 . . (2) 21.2 Why is it important that very few people should know the identity of TWA's' internal airline critics? ' '. ., (2 ) " 21.3 'last Week's news is bad news'. In"term.s of the information con... tained in paragraph 6. explain why i~ast week's news is bad news'. (2) " (I -; ENGLISH FIRST lANGUAGE IiG (Second Paper) HG 12/2 9 22. Explain the pun in the opening bold tex~ heading to the! advertisement. (2 23. Examine Cartoon 1. Both the adv~rtisement and cartoon 1 look at similar aspe't.',",:sof air travel, "namely, the comfort of the passeuqers , 23.1 In contrast to the advertisement, what 'reality' of air travel is depicted here? ., (2 23.2 Give two .words to describe the expression on the face of the man sHtLr'tQ in .t..he middle seat. (21 23.3 Apart from the obvious distraction offered by the baby, what further ~\source(s) of inconvenience does the man in the middle seat have to \\endure? (2 23.4 Why is the visual aspect of this cartoon so vital in making it humorous? (2 24. Now look at Cartoon 2. 24~.J Jonathan Raban in writing on Qatar and the Arabs (Seqtion B) and this cartoon make a similar statement about modern society. What is it? (2 24.2 This cartoon depends rather on irony than on obvi ous humour for its effect. why does the reader 'smilE' on seeing the .second frame? (2 j' 24.3 In what way may this cartoon be considered satirical? (,eli 24.4 Why;s there no text attached to t~'e~second frame? (2) 25. The ques tjons that follow' ask you to examine issues of language and style from the TWA advertisement. 25.1 Rewrite paragraph 1 as one sentence, makin9 Whatever chC!.nges are necessary, (2) 25.2 Paragraph 2 contains the follQwlng statement: 'At TWA, we employ a group of men and women who make t.heir living by flying out planes.' In context this is ambiguous .• 25.2.1 Explain the ambiguity, (2) 25.2.2 Rewrite t~e senten~~, inserting the preposition reqtiired to~ rell)rov.ethis ambigulty. ( 2l,J 25.3 Paragraph 3 makes Use of the word it1s. Indicate the\~rl;ffe.rence " between ; tis and its. -- '::::c:~:::. . - ,. ~ 2b.4 Look at tete ,structure of ~he sentences in para9raphF:)~' Q and 10. Each of these p~lragrap.hs contatns an example of the same'grammatical cniss ton. J 25.4.1 What is this omission? 25.4.2 Choose anyone of the sentences concerned and rewrite it so as to eliminate the error. (2) 25.w The phrase .eassen~ersl point of view (paragraph 9)may be perceived as conta1n1ng an error. Either correct this error-, or justify the correctness of the phrase. (2) TOTA\.: 100 M12AAM ENGLISH FIRST LANGUAGE HG HG 12/2 9 L-_;,.-_---_----:""',_-----.._~,::'(S~cond Paper) 22. Expl a in the pun in the opening bold text heading to the advertisement. 23. Exam.ine .Cartoon 1. Both the advertisement and cartoon 1 look at similar aspects 'of air travel ~ namely, the comfort of the passengers. 23.1 In contrast to the advertisf:ment, what lreality' of air travel is depicted here? - (2 23.2 Give two words to descrl~) the expression on the face of the man sittjngJI1 the middle seat. (2 23\~3 Apart from the. obvi ous di stract ion offered by the baby, what further source(s) of inconvenience does the man in the middle seat have to endure? (2 23.4 Why is the visual aspect of this cartoon so vital in making 1t(2.j. humorous? . 24. Now look at ~artoon 2. 24,·1 Jonathan Raban in writi.ng on Qatar and the Arabs (Sec;i;ion B) and this cartoon make a similar statement about modern society, What is it? {2 24.2 Th.is cartoon depends rather on irony than on obvt ous humour for its effect. Why does the reader 'smil~' on seeing tbe second frame? (2 'II 24.3 In what way may this cartoon be considered satiri!fal? (2 \f; 24.4 Why is there no text attached to the second frame? ( 2) 25. The questions that follow ask you to examine issues of language and style from the TWA advertisement. 25,.1 Rewrite paragraph 1 as one sentence, making whatever changes are necessary. (2) 25.2 Paragraph 2 contains the following statement: 'At TWA, we employ a group of men and women who make their living by flying our planes.l in context this is ambiguous. 25.2.1 Explain the ambiguity. {2) 25.2.2 Rewrite the sentence, insertimg the preposition required to remov~ this ambiguity. (2) 25.3 Paragraph 3 makes USe of the word it's. Indicate the difference between it's and its. - 25.4 look at the struc1mre of the sentences +n. paragraphs 8~ 9 ..and 10. Each of these paragraphs contains an example of thf~ same grammatical omission. 25.4.1 What is this ~mission? 25.4.2 cnocse anyone of the sentences concerned and rewrite:' it so as to el'iminate the error. . (2) 25.5 The Phrase .eassen~ers I eoint of vie~ (paragraph 9) may be ..... perceived as contalning an error, Either correct this error, or justify the correctness of the phrase. j' (2) \. '.\ ~/TAl: ("100 M12AAM ApI2EN[) I X .-tS • r~/2 MEMORANDOM~ 1& .5-/1 ENGLISH FIRST LANGUAGE HIGHER GRADE PAPER II Remember t.l\I.at.the memorandum i $ not. a .set of· model answer&:: It indicat.es 'the dirsetion t.hst. answeJ:'s can/should t.ake. It uses words from the text, Yhere candidateG should use their own. It uses point-form answ~\rs; candidates should not.. The better candi dat.es· anSWer!; will fqaguently deviate from the l2Iema. Rel2lember also that these are first lan<;ju8ge candidates .. They are elCpected to be able to write fluent, COl?rect English. Penalise when this is not. done, as directed bYnyotlr chief marker. Ii r,(\\ "~\ SECTIONA West Berlin v East Berlin ~ctivity & vitality drabness ) The anSWer Ii here glamour abnormality) Accept this ~s capi'talistlc commllnistic) well ( 2 ) 2.. a leftOVer form the •20$ and 30s (effe.t'V'escence and creat.ivit..:y) a strategy for dealing with con.finement, i sdlation and un- certai~ty (Candidates preferablY to U$e own words~ Both aspects ['equired for full marks.) (2 ) 3. (A more testing question now, ~tt~:u;· two easieI' ones.. The bett~r candidate has an opportunity to eme~ge.) Ham.er ringing a building spree; change; symbol of industry; also a symbol of communism (2) the sickle - agricultural;' -, change to an industrial society is underway; sickle is in its de- scendancy (1) (3] 4 c (Must be .cvn words. Must be o.ne sentence 0 Must b'e a s:um,l2Iarj'. Penalise. '1 The f.ollowing answer is adequate for full l2Ia;z:-ks• .) II !(, The ~uthorities are atteMpting ~,.o create the impt:'ession of a normal, Vibrant European city wh~re people live well. (2) t\ 5. Change of names ~, to impose a particul Cir atmO&pJHlre.. (Accept any answer that points to this and is not a re- writing of the qu~stion ..) (2 ) 6. senior - leading/r~spected analyst. - political cODlII,entator/authority 01\\ political matters (2) ~RANSVAAL •ED1JCAT tON DEPARTMENT .1-- • Copyr!!!!.:!."::.~,~e....r....v.....·e_d...... I, .. 7. 8. Answers must. point. to connot.ation and denotation. It.s huqs size, but also what it re.presentso (2 ) 9. 9.1 a flat word/dead woe-d/cliche. Candidate should expand on this. The word "big'" has 11tt.le meaning as used in this context ~ It is non- specific, over"wot}r.edand too colloquial. 9.2 Award 0,5,. 1, 1,5 or 2 depending on an sve e , SECTION B 10. yellow/gold (1) a}r" ...~.J(~) .~ -c /"" l;6 ~'1,' ~)-.t r: ..'. 'rl /( (I) 11. graff fto ...s ingul a.r; graff iti - p Iur a 1 (I) (Only 1 mark if candidate does not indicate \~hich is sln- gular ~ which is plural.) ::'(2) . ~f 12. 12.1 wreckage, ruins, dead animal. Answers should point to all of the above and link these ,P.t~,{ :ll ...J:,~~t~e aftermath of war. (2) v 12.:2 ioIevt-h-;"~ (Any answer that indicates this.) (,) Clearly "thi sis no poor s.t.ate. Not even the junked cars have been stripped, as would be the case in ~ poor countrY.0) -::::.(2 ) 13. Answer must indicate an understanding of paradox. handsome filth ) accept either, or treasury of filth) both aspects ( 2 ) SECTION C ;1 )/ 14~ His intimate kn6~ledge of the place is obvious as is his af- fection for it. Writin9 fro~ personal s~perienca. Can- didates may point +.0 U.e first paragraph, to his tone, to his familiarity with life on Cannery Row, and to h1s use of first nam~s (Doc, Lee Chong~ Henri). (3) 15. (Another l')pportunity for.,the top candidates to emerge. Ex .. pect gooq answers for 3.f) ~\ 16 16 ..1 Answer'~ must. poin.t to his disparaging (neqstlve) at- ~i~ude to sardines. ( 2 ) 16.2 Figure • figu~e of speech. Advisedly chosen. appropriate comparison. (An$wer must embrace both aspects fot' :2 marks.) (2) 17. (Here, too, the candidat.e·s sensitivity to style, mood, tone is beIng probed.) Candldate;s must link repetition of "them" to repeti t:l.veness of the w~'rkin9 day. Sf.)undand mEit:.ning0 Serv1n.9 as a 11n') 2 i; 18. As for number 17. Sound heps reinfor;ces JIIeaninq.. Kooos'11- labic ~ords creat.e impression of machines at work. Repeti- tivenes:~ of sound is linked to the repetitiveness o·f the' production line~ (3) 19. Candidates mUst (a) write factually, 0 (b) Ii.it their answers to ~pO words, (c) write to the indicated ~ud~ence. Penalise the inclusion of non-foctual information. The fol~ lowing points might help: 1. Cannery Row is in Monterey, California. 2. While it may have intangible qualities, 3. it is definitely rundown. 4. Fishing and the canneries - main industry. Boats fish at night and deliver· the ~atch in the morning. 5. Working class - pedestrians. Executives - motor cars. 6. Cosmopoli tan -, 7. Boats unload the catch and work commences. a. Noisy activity. Busy, tiring work. 9. After the workers retire Cannery Row is quiet aqaln. 10. The locals then come out and go about theif business. Mark globally ~Ut of 15. Then analysQ according to a ratio of S marks for factual information g:!.venand 6 for- style. The 9 for factual information need not embrac~ all the points above. SECTION D 20. Image of a caring 8\.:1rl:1.ne,cne that is concerned about pas- GAnger 't:ol!lfort. (2 ) . \ 21. tells in its adverts of its 21.1 T.W.A.'tt c,' use of employees wHo, while pretending to be ordinary passengf;(rs, ac « tually assess and report back on the standards of in ... flight service •. (2) To el1sut'e anonym! ty and therefore t.hese employees receive treatment no diff.ren~ from that of any othel' paea:ehger" (2 ) 21.3 The ~resence of -Last week's new~w would point to a lack of qllr:e/poor standards/falling attention to deta:l.t, as indic,ted by not having the latest "neW's" ,. a~ailabi.p. ( 2 ) ..., 22. Cax-.didatas must illustrate an understanding of the pun. (2) :.,.I l:. 230 23.1 In this case discomfort is occasioned by other travellel."s.. TraVel is not all glsll\our and ·comfort" (2) 23.2 Award 0,51' 1, 1/5 or 2 depending on app.l'opr'iateness of answer. (2) 23.3 Smoke f~om male passeng~r; elbow in rib~; noise fro~ lCI\.ldspeaker. 3 f) 1\1 Any t.wo of the $·bc.we for 1 Ul~rk each .. (2 ). 23 ..4 Contrast bet.ween te:s:t. and pict.ure.is il'llpo'rtant. The words on their own are not funny at all. Irony depen- dent on both .. (,~ ) r> 24. 24..1 Mankind spoils his en.vironlnent.. He "junks" f~"",."\ (2 ) 24.2 Any acceptable explanation of the humour of the cartoon. (2 ) <.--::' 24 ..3 Understanding of satire e&sElttltial. (2 ) 24.4 Tb~ picture tells it all. "text is s~pertluous in frame two •. (2) 25. 25.1 While it Is not unknown fat' airlines to have th~ii critics, (one may wonder) how many actually r:-ew.ard th~ID with money. (Any such answer. Deduct 1 mark for a.ny error of style" language, punctuat.ion, spelling in candidata'~aanswer.) Accept: It's .... critics" but •.•• IDon,ay? _ (2) 215.2 2S.Z.1 The i !~entences actually li:uggea,t pllBts. ) Cle~;':"/~Y pilot.s are not intenc'le:,d here. Henci~ the ambiguity. (2) 2&.2.2 "At'!'. W. A. . we elnploy a group of men and women who make their living by flying on/in our plane •• " Accept" any sditabl~ 2Eeposit.io~. . '. . (2) 25~3 it's = it is its ..;: posrt'ess1clO (2.) 25.4 25.4 .•1 Lack of finit.e verb. , (2) 25.4.2 Two marks :I. f c(o'rr$ct.l ~J d.one. (2 ) 25 .•5 Accept : passenger! S PlJint of "viett'.. (jt' ; '\ passengers' P,foint.s of vi.ew.. (2) . t dY . II. '0 ,~'{,.. .._ ~. •• t.t ,,"." ; c:; 'tOTAL 100 11 ....t; ", " \:', \1 ENGLISH FIRST LANGUAGE HIGHER GRADE , · (SECOND PAPE,~) COMPREHENSION AND LANGUAGE HG 12/2 HG 12/2 HG 1212 HG 12/2 HG 12/2 HG 12/2 HG 12/2 HG 12/2 HG 12/2 HG 12/2" HG 12/2 HG 12/2 HG 12/2 "HG 12/2 AG 12/2 HG 12/2 BG 12/2 HG 12/2 HG 12/2 HG 12/2 HG 12/2 HG 12/2 HG 1212 AG 12/2- HG 12/2 HG 12/2 HG 12/2 HG 12/2 AG 12/2 HG 1212 HG 12/2 AG ,1212 HG 12/2 HG 12/2 HS 1212 HG'12/2 HG 12/2 AG 12/2 HG 12/2 .~ fiG 121~1 \~ THXS PAPER. CONSISTS OF 10 PAGE$ TRANSVAAL EDUCATION DEPARTMENT (.l () SENIOR CERTIFICATE EXAMINATION NOVEMBE~\1990 P.T.O. Copyright reservep '\~ \\ \~ \\~. '\\ ENGLISH FIRST lAHGUAGE HG 1~J,2 2 HIGHER tf;jru.IDE ENGLISH FIRST LANGUAGE HIGHER GRADE.. (Second paper) COMPREHENSION AND lANGUAGE HG 12/2 TRANSVAAL EDUCATION DEPARTMENT SENIOR CERTIfiCATE EXAMINATION mlVEMBER 1990 TIME; 2% hours This e:)Camination paper consists of FIVE SEC1 ..~S on a related topic., \!n 'is suggestl:!d that yt)U spend 20 ~i nutas readt ng through the ent"!re paper. Then study' each pas sage and answer the questio~~s that follow in the t~me allocated to each section, to ensure that you have 25 minutes at the end to complete the SUwmotTrY. Please bear in mind that the sUl11llaryis based on the issues raised in EACHof toe preceding four sections. ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS, using the given numbering system. Please head each section clearly and leave a few lines open between each answer. Rule off after each section. SECTION A (30 minutes) PASSAGE ONE I alii tired of hearing that .an is 011 his way to The survival of the distant past in human ext Il'lCt ion, IIlong )fith mst othi!i' fl'iflllS of life. nature lllanifests Use If at a lmost every Lik;e I!Iany others, I am alal'llll!o.. 'by the destructive IIClDeflt of our daily life. We build wood effects {If OUT' power-into)(icat~ technology and of 45 fires in steanrheatoo city apartments; ~ 5 our ungoverned popu1ation . gr.owth; r' know that keep plants and ani.'ls lround us as If to scientists have even worked out a specific Minta;n .. dirtlCt contact with our own' timetable for the extinction of lIIIInk.ill(!. But 1II'J origins; \W! tra\le 1 loog and far on 'lreekends own v'lew ot' I!1illl as a biological anillliJl suggests to recapture SaTie aspect of the wi lderness I that somethlpg lL'Orse than extinction is in store 50 fT'ail 'llhich 0IJ1' ancestors emerged centur-Ies 10 for us. ago. Man ..,i 11 survive as a species for goo reason: he The prob lei111of the env ir'onment inllo lves' the can adapt to al!!lOst Jnything. I all sure we can salvation and enhancl1l!lilent of those positive adapt to the dirt, pollution lind llQise of a Hew lIa'~ ~tch illan uses to develop his York or Tcltyo. But that Is the real tragedy· we 55 ~nness. It invollles, ultimately, a 15 can adapt to it. It is not nan the ecological social Gl'9anillCltion in which each person crisis threatens to destroy but the quality of has f~ in selecting the stage all t!hich hUMn life. the attributes that i1IilkehuMan life to act h;~ .)ife; a peacefulllillage green, different fJ'(lll aniraal life •. the bar.sof a river, the exciting plaz~ in & great city. Survival is not enough. Wild ani.als can survive and even aultlpl~ in city Seeing the Milky Way, experiencing t~ •.0 zoos, but at the cost of losing the physical and fragrance of spring and obser"i~g other behavioural splendour they possess in their fonas of life continue to play an immense natural habitat. SI.i1arly, hLflIan beings can ro Ie in the r;eve loanent of hlnanness. Man almost certainly survive and .ultiply in the 65 can use I!lIanyd1;'f~rent aspects of reality polluted cage of technological ciVilisation, but to sake his H:4. not by ill\lOsing himself 25 we my sacrifice ~h of our tumnr.es::I in adapt ing as a ~!.'.~ror on nature, but by to s!Jeh coOOitions. Like aniNls, IIIeI\ tend til participaUng 1n the continuous act of _e SOlE '(arlll of adjust~t to di'lngerous creaticrn in wht~h all 1i"il1g things are conditions, llhen these develop sl~ly without 70 eflgaged. Othe~.lse. 1I/.Inmay be doaned to giving clear signs of th!! deleter ices effech. surVive as SOiIIetl\\jng lllss tb,an m.t!l'ln. :-10 Paradoxically, aJst of the threatl!llillg situations we face today haV!! their origins in the hm!ense adaptabl11ty of IIIi.Inldnd. Ecologist:!! and lIIedical scientists have been chiefly CQIlCernedwith the undesirable effects of 1>I.\~l"~t ~f t~lIl~nt.l SECTION A :1 1. IEl the openin9 paragraph, the .writel' reters to the theory advanced by many !>Ci~ptists that man is en the way to extinction. ',(Lin~ 1) , \ \ J .1,) Using your own, words, Jist FOUR of, the major areas of, concern to environmental sctent+sts as mentioned In paragrapbs. 1 and 2. (4) 1.2 Do YOU think the wri tel" F agrees that man is in _fact" he_acHng for extinc'tion? Please give .a reason for :vour answer. u (2) I 2., What point is the wt'it.er;making about. manki.nd'S(>future by ~is reference to animals in city zoos (line 19)7 - (3) 3. Account for the writer's usc of the word (~fradoXiCkhy' in 1ine 30 . (3) 4. From its context within paragraph _3, d&llce the meaning of the wor-d 'deleterious' (Line 29). - (2) 5. Explain \'Ihe.thet' the word 'rooted' (,{line 39)-''-';s usedi)'literally or met.aphor.i cal ly in tM s context. U (3 ) 6. What eVidence is there in paragraphs~4~6 to suggest why we South Africans ocdas ional Iy feel a need to escape to pl aces such as the Vaal Dam, the Drakensberg or the Natal coast? Please answer briefly in your own words: (3) 7. Explain why the_,writer's USe of the SEMICOLONmay be considered a better punctuationmark'"to use than a comma or a fo'l1 stop in lines 45 and 48. (3) 8. The writer maintains that there are certain elements needed in 1 fe ifman is to survive as a ful1y~hllman\belng. Refer to paragraphs 4~6 nd deduce what these three elements are, Please use your own words. (3) (26) P.T.O. J, ENGLISH fIRST LANGUA~~E HG.12/2:T' 4 L..!!H~IG!!.!.!H!!:!ER~GAAD~!:!.!E=--- ""_"_J-_ ~, __' SECTION B (IS minutes) PASSAGE 1W Jhe babyse~seye" was smashed to a bloody pMlpo It was r('m.lr"li~"t·h()w the ,ma,h;nR the haby se..I', in,finO I" liv~ ~h,)wrd up .Y~, Th. ",(,,"d hlnw <.!lW even in ~ bJby ... ~I, Ht' 1<,,,,,, Ille "" .. Mind side and would "'hv~ hi~ head In (a"~ht Ih""'~1in th~nt'(k- dvoid Ihc mur r------~11'"'lIe'""''''''''I~'' ...~41''1' ... 1 r , I 1- ~ I l~ : : 1'... ,,,,._ t ~ 'kndt""wd'~''''~~'Jfdt_tin·. : I ~:;;::lt"~~.~:t~I::: ....1,~C'~771-; I ~------~ 9. HO\'ihas your attent; on been drawn to this advertisement? Refer to three different techniques that have been used. (3J 10. The intention of this advertisement is threefold. Show that you are aware of this by stating: 10.1 What FACTUAL INFORMATION it is providing [2 2.j 10.2 What CAUSE it is propagatin~ 10.3 What EMOTIONAL RESPONSe it 1$ attempting to arOUse 2 11. This advertisement is a blutant example of SENSATIONALISM. Sensationalism has been defined as the conspicuous arousal of excessively strong and irrational emotion for a specific purpose. By referring to appropriate words and phrases, show how your responsp is being manipulated by the sensationalism of the Writing in the advertise- (5) ment. (14 ) ~------~----,----~------~~_j o \) ENGLISHFIRST I..ANGUAGE fiG 12/2 5 I..-;":.:.I:,.:G::,:H:.::-E.;,;- R:....::G~RAD:..=.:E=-,,- ~ ~ __ ,;)_, . ,o.;(;J,..-""-~_-I \\ o SECTION C (40 minutes) PASSAGE3.1 It 1$ only when you Bet II IHtle further north, to the potfery tOllll'lS and beyond, that you begin tl) encounter the l"¢al lJg,lIness of ~ndus,tl"ia1iSlll;- an ugliness $(I frightful and sa arresting that you are obliged. as it were, to CQIie to tel'll)S with ,it. A slag-heap it at best ,II hicleQus" thing, becaw.c ft is so planless and functiorl'less. '. I.t i:t s~thing just ~ 011 the earth. like the ~tyill9 pf II giant's dust-bin. ,()ften the slag"heaps are on fire, 5 and at night yOu Can see thll red .rivulets of fire winding ttl's way and that, and also the s low... ving blue flames of sulphur, which 1I1wIlYS s~ on the point of expiring and always $pril19 (out again. And the stench! If at rar(l II!I;IIIelltsyou stop smell ing su Iptiur it is because .)IOU have b€i,gun sre l1ing gas. Even the shallow river that runs through the town is usually bright ~llow with some I;:hanlcal or ot~r. At night, ~ yOU canhOt.ll~ the hldeQus shapes of the houses and the blackllflS$ of, ~lVeryth1"',9. II town 10 like Sheffield assumes a kind of sinister 1lla9nifh:ence, Salletil!les the drifts of, :;Iri)lkeare rosy with sulphuT, and'serrated flames. like c;rcu'at saws, squeeze t~1ves out frc:a; be~th,the cowls of the, foundry chimeys. Thl"QUghthe open doors of"f~ndriell ygU' see fiery serpent;; of iI':U\ being hauled to, and fro by ~, -ue boys, IIIld ,YGlPhear the whizz and t~ of stea! ~rs and the sc~", '. of U;e irO]1 " under the blOll!. ",• • \ 15 • 0 , ":: GEORGE ORIJELl\ 'II, I" ,I I! PASSAGE 3. 1 12. Good descriptive writing USUally appeals to at least one' of our, five senses. Identify the writer's use of three different senses in this description, providing an appropriate quotation from the passage for e~ch sense. '(3) 13. E'xamine this image from patagraph 3: 'serrated flames, 1;ke circul ar saws, squ\~eze themselves out {l ine 12 }. ' 13.1 What do you visual ise from thi s simi 1e? (3) 13.2 Howdoes the all iteration help to intensify the sinister impression of this image? " (2) '. P.l.O. () " v \ < EMGLlS» FIRST lANGUAGE HG 12/2 6 r HIGHER GRADE (, \) t ! I o iI, PASSAGE 3.2 () Too rirJ,er ~hed .Oyer the bats of his .atotcyci.le llnd ~ed north i~to the -*:1 rain. The squalid fringes of Leeds. No .~1 suburban hOllsing. ,lt~ to hili that the road drove through a largely ~ty pli1~n I.lfI which, at rlJndcwiI{lieIl$~1I1lss1y.". stone hoa.Ise, a factory. a garage, a brick w ~ then en thrl left. ~Jf seen in thl blur of his glasses, he suddenly Si\1JI s~thlng that shrtled S hili. Sanethlng huge was-"hijming, ,like a town iooinerolted by tlla blitz, abal1doned and guttering in the steady rain <: The Itil-above it ilfas.,choked "ith :sulphurous -*e that, s1O\Cly bt~!led upward, siilently. fl"CX!l the ..,rOO ,flte#. Massy cYH!]1iers and dark grids 1~ out of the rain - the charre \J ENGUSH fIRST lANGUAGE HG 12/2 7 HIGHER GRADE 15.3 What is the p1ur{l.l of 'l;'imbo"'? (1) i ' Umb) (·m) II., 4( u.l. 1. n. Le$. II"", 0' witgl I/(II/Jl "",hhliI~.ltd ..., w!lhoUI ,rave I"jl)fY; te,ar ..,. from .... eO!llpleldy di$memu.cr wilh i vlOlell(e. • " '' tlmb~ (.m) ~. Gr.ldUllled ed~e orquadr.", ere.; edge (1#1""', 14u."" ere., IIm6) of .un, .moon, etc.; bro~d p:m of pets], sepa], or leaf. [C. F lim •• or i. I. Ii... .., hem. border! lr'JUWek. Var. (arch.) of ..U:UklC, U·,ob ....III •• & ~.I.1. ft. Delli~,hablt Crolllof gun. '(II,ITIOLgt (two whec:($. ",.Ie, lIDle, and llmlrtuni:~ I:"~, lion·box as ICIlt). 2. ~.I. '" (I!p), .HilCh limber 10 (gun), faSI~Q logether ,w(; pam (If (gu,,' -carriage, or ab&.). tME /1","'(11)', app, (d. to med, L. IliII_flll (/,~ o4!IU.luIfl); fOr .6· cr. s/~m.trJ {J I) \\ ,.. It'mb~r'1 II. <'Naut.) Guller on eilb"r aide f~t kccls.ln rot drainAge to Jll1mt,.wtll. [t. I' lumiir# light, hole, limber, f. Rpm. ·lumillll,i4 r. pl. of L IUIJlillar, lamp (LOIl£N)t . ~\ Wml>er" 4., &: p.l.•• II. i'lexiblcj lithe., "Imble. \ 2. v.'.... h,p), ilia... limber (pt"l'SQn, body eie., ' or "I,..). lperh. f. Ui4!1I1:I<',w. ref. 10 In<)vcmcnl qr.bQfuj ¥'mi:!iS 1\. (pl. _i. ReBion 011 border or hell. ~upJ'(»ed abode ot pre.ChriJlian rill'IuC(lU1 'i{>etiOlIJ lind unbapdzw infllnll' pniOli. con- filltme"q Clllldhiollor rotglecl or ublivian. (ME. r. med, 1. phr, iillim'~.r. Ii",.", (ace u~.~)l U'mb.qel!' (.~.).II. !i9(1 white eh~est whh (i characlcrillk .ltOllI smdl. onil. made in Ur"bll~.IDu,. r. LIIt'.,"l in !}ellllum; JCe 'l!~lJ Collins Concise English Dictionary 16. Compare the descripti'ons Qf thie cities in Passages 3.1 and 3.2. Howare the "descriptions of Sheffield and leeds SIMILAR in i~erms of the ),' following? e 16.1 ,"Setting" 16.2 Atmosphere 16.3 Industrial activity .Ul 17. Despite the ugliness of the scene he deseritJes, each writer imp:lies that there is also a certain positive quality, if not beauty, implicit in the scene. 17.1 Refer to paragraphs 2 and 3 of Passage 3.1 (Sheffield). (I ~~ote ONE image from EACH paragraph that you feel suggests a certain at\tractiveness. in the scene and then explain the reason for each (4) chc Ice. 17.2 Carefully examine the last sentence cf Passuge 3.2 (Leeds). The rider's response to the city has now undergone a subtle change. What is this change in response and what word or words indicate this (3) change? (33) P.T.C. • .L:i () . EHGllSlf fiRsT lANGUAGE HG 12/2 a 1_ HIGHER GRADE o .c SE(:11OO 0 {I5 mi.nutes} PASSAGE FOUR THE GAB:BAGE MAXERS MEW YORK M ~ ~ther' whale and a The fatttElr !!bale. caned t.heir ~Your ~ather has been very father whal«: were 3Wi_itlg along attention to «II _11 group of sensiti~e abct!t garbage;" the the coast with the'll' adolescent peopl~ '!1M had detached theslselves mther tdlale exp1aHled. "ever son wha le .wi1en the IIIOther sighted ftoll the :ch(lOl lind were getting ~1nce he' dived into 800 tons of a schoo 1 of peep 1e bI'I the beitch. into I Ilietill box JIIOIIIltcd ~ fre:sh s lodge thc1t ~d just been ~lli. Whell they 'we~ ~1l ~,off the NewJersey coast. "\/hat's that?" asked tM $011 inside, the .etd box I!IOV~ i!llong" Yoor. father and MYself were not whale. ~ had j'iflver seen " S;::0001 the beach throwing up a great happy. tie SIDe ned like a sewer ot people bef,,)"e. or evlm 1I stray c loud of ~tnd. .and oostroying for ~s." per:smt. vegetat1!Mt a~il btrds' IlE$t:tJ The whales ~de for. dee~ distant "'('hat's people, $1;1(1" hid the At ~t JD1iI21It. siX beer Callis calle \later and later that !l1'ght, as fatiter whale. ""00 lSet! thea all flyill9 out of the bolt, fol1~ by they drifted off the .Gulf Stre~. up and ~ ttl~s coast at thhl a bag contail1rlll9 II half-eatert hot lldlalring th~ stars. a large ship tilille of year" They coyer dog. a llUshrd ~r, .\'IIlIIIe banana pas~ by ..00 spilled all Oller theme l'ves )1f1t~ Un and lie up peels lind an _ty plastiC; bQdy- [i thr.Bl. but they l'elMined in hannony thclre on t~ sand i!nd boi 1 oil contailll!r. with the world as it was, and theal$el\ies Ul1tl1"they siUie." afterwards d~ of the "Maybe that' s the t1!lilSQtl tho 6""'t unfortul1llte people far behind thf.si1 "'1Jhy did the' Gl'elIt lIha1e !lake Vha le )Ilacte peep le," sa ld the young _lng garbage throogh the sweet peop Ie anyhow?" whale. "To Nke garbage." stdliCr ntght. "There are $OIIIIil things," said the "The \rIQrld daes,,'t neild sarbage." mtner whdll. "that evcm .,~ growled the fa~ner whale. - The'lcew York Til!le~ Hews Service. I can't understand. lie ....st !lceeyt '. the 1«11' ld ii:l! it hi .!~.liVe In RUSSELflAl(ER (The Star) hamany liI1th it." ~----~,------~------"~------~ 18. Afteri:.a careful l"eading of this art tela, do you feel it is merely frivolous (i.e. \\Jighthearted and trivial) or is it satirical? Justify yeur decision by rf,!f({tring to th~ content, intention and tone 'of the article. (5) \\ J9, You no ~oubt smiled when reading this passage. Refer to one example that you foun~ funny and explain the humour. (3) " ,eo. Towards the end of the second-last paragraph the foll owing sentence appears: 'Your father and myself we\"e not happy.' This reflects a widespread grammatical error most people make nowadays, Rewrite the, sentence by merely correcting the pronoun. (2) Please underline the correction. (10) ~--'~~c------~~·~------,----~------~---r--~/} I ~.ir;1 ENGLISH FIRST lANGUAGE HG 12/2 9 i{'IGHER tRADE (30 minutes,) o () in klIIin/: animals." o 21. On whatdoes this cartOQn depend its humour? Refer, in your"a~~.wer, 'to the. 1iterary dey; ce that underl ies the humour. \" (2) , 22. P1ease turn over to page 10.for the ~uC:'tnar'y.. ' o ·'P'.T.O. ~) cs o " t EIIGliSl1 FIRST IJINGUAGE HGJ2/2 9 I" HIGHER GRADE ," .J SECTION E (30 minutes) CARTOON"'AND' SllftARy ii & •~ •,No, rJlQnk.1.I'm 0. Yf'gt'lorian. I don't Iklilfve in killin~ animals," t. 21 . On what does thi s cartoon depend 'For its humour? Refer, in your answer, to the 1iterary dey; ce that under lies the humour. ('2) 22. Please turn ov~r'\ to page 10 for the summary. ,-:) ( \ P.T.O. i.- ....------t""----...-..------() _.J -~~~.'.L_. I' " ENGl1fH FIRST lANGUAGE HG 12/2" 10 HICHEI i GRADE /i ,IIII 22. SUftlJ.tARY r;, FANTASTIC HITS IN,.,CL,UDIN,G: _6,. . We kill the world , . Rivers of Babylon . .: Ma Baker " Daddy Cool Marv 's boy child No woman nO cry The pop group, 'Boney M'" is planning to re~.release one of its popul-ar albums featuring the hit song 'We Kill the World'. The record company requires a short 100, word article, to be printed on the record sleeve, on the topic of the environmenta.l c'risis today. By consul t i09 EACHoft)the precadt ng pas sage.s an(l t,tJr~ cartoon, use the ; n format ion to write the requireCf article. Write in connected 'sentences and, use shprt paragraphs. To asstst you in formulating a logical arrangement of the spsc t f t c issues mentioned, use the following guidelines, BUT DO NOT incorporate them as sub- headings in your summary of 100 words: 0. The sea (Passage four) Refer to 2 issues. TheCenvironment (Section E~ CartDon) Ref~r to 1 issue. () Animal s (Passage Two) Refer to 1 issue. Industrialisation (Passages. 3.1 and 3.2) Refer to 2 issues. 1<) Man's survival (Passage One) Refer to 2 issues. Title your summary '00n't Kill the" World'!' andliat the end of the summary indicate in brackets the fXACT number of words'you have used. (Spend about 25 minutes Gn the summary.) (IS) TOTAL: 100 / ENGLISH FIRST LANGUAGE 'HIGHER GRADE Nt;. /;J./~ (SECOND PAPER: COMPR.'EllENSION AND LANGUAGE) ,I l:.r f MEMORANDU',M /1 The s),1ggestedanswers are mer~lY a guide as to what can be expected of the candidates under examinadon conditions. As this is a Higher Grade examination, good candidates must be given credi t for dive:rgent, but '(] appropriate answers, to ensure an I3.cceptablespread of marks among the il. G .Group. ' ~'Determine overall competence of c.andidate by FLUENCY of first' few answers: *Underline errors of syntax punctuation', spelling etc. *Tick cor-rect words/phrases/parts of an answer. Mark subs ect Iors on left. Totals on right .. SECTION A (Answers mainly factual, deductive). 1. 1.1. destructive effeces of modk:t-ntechnology/progress uncontrolled popul ati on growth envirOnIIlental pollution noise Pollution ecological crisis (4) 1.2. No. (1) Han is adaptable,)('and won't be affected by environmental d e: \~y) (1) (2) Animals survive out of their natural environment in zoos (1), but lose their 'physical and behavioural splendour' (1). Uumans will sacrifice their essential h'wnanness in this adaptatlOil. (i) (3) 3. Th1:eat.eningsituations shOuld have destroyed man, but our adaptability a11o\\'s us to survive (1) and Create further life-threatening situations (2) .,. a pc:iradox (3) 4. deleterious '"dangerous, advers.~~j'harmful (bad ~ 1) . ! (2.) 5. 'tooted' is used metaphorically (1) as a need can't take root in something (2) (3) If a sound reason for saying it is 'literal' is giVen, allocate 2 marks 6. Man needs to express Jis aboriginal/primitive nature or The survival of the distant past,manifested in most thing$ we do. (1) e ..g. fires /p laI1ts/animals in our homes. (1 ) travel distari~~s to tec;,apturethe wilderness/ natural environment/being part Of nature (1) (3) 7. Semicolon used to separate different, but related c;,onceptsin a list (2) and showing thc:itthey fo·rm part of a Whole (1 Y. Full Stop w,ould remove the concept that the ideas are linked/connected (1). COtnIllais incorrect as the sentences are complete in themselves and toC' long (1) for a minor punctuation mark. The conjunction 'and' would make the sentence long, clumsy and pUerile (1). Semi-colons help in accentuating/highlighting each point. (1) TRANSVAAL. EDYCATION DEPARTl\1ENT ! Copyrjg~t reserved .------~------~------, J. 8. Creative aspf\~~" expre\~;~l/our. fu~ amental hUInan/primitive nature anythu/~ that pak.es man f\~l1y human I free. s4)oia1 0 ganisation to express himself experU~ncing the sensitivity of natural >I ,',' phentOt'(,ena b!?in~)Jpart of creation (3) Candid;:l.-;ef must use OWNwords~ No examples required. SECTIONB (Mainly interpretation/personal response) 9. Bold he.adline (eye catching/dramatic/sensati.o.~lal) Picture {leading eye to text) ",If Bold Secondary headline (shock tacti~) Logo Use of emotive language in headlines (3) o 10. 10.1. Killing a young seal/clubbing its head Seal skinned alive for its fur. Asking for donacion/Beautywithout cruelty. (2) 10.2. Cause : Beauty without c.ruelty (2) Against use of animal products for frivolous adornment and be~~ty (2) Emotion : Sympathy/revuls ion/sho{!kl anger (2) 11. Unthinking, itraclonal, emotional response baby seal c..'f bloody ijl1.p , murderoc.s club experienced killers smashing .•. eye blind side searing pain skinned alive Chlbbing a baby to death (3) Candid~tes need to indicate hot.' restInse is aroused (shock, sympathy; play on reader's emo t Iens thr~ugh horrifi.c images.) (2) (5) SECTION C (Respond ing to metaphorical lranguage) Passage 3.1. 12. Visual "a slag heap .• , •.. dumped on the earth" "see th~ red riYulets of £ire .•.• ,n "s low moving blue flames ,I '.j Smell smelling sul.phur, "smelling gas" Sound "whizz and thump of S:-ea:mhammersn "scream of iron". ,...,1(Half a mark fot sense and half for ~uotation) (3) 13. ,. "Somethi,ng like "!_han. jagged p01l1ts of flame spurting up around the edge~". (3) I o 13.• 2,. Sibilants create a hissing, sinis ter impression (2) PASSAGE 3.2. i\ 14.1. smoky rain; squalid fringes; empty pl ai.n ; ,) ~~'::_.--::,:,r.andomhouse, factory etc; grey and' soiled'; no-man' s 1and. (3) 14.2. Two short disjoint~~ s ent.encesj staccato effect; don't flow smoothly and naturally I followed by a long, heavily punctuated sentence forcing one to absorb the depressing details; sentence slowed down, etc. (3) ,,: 15. 15.1. Limbo = border of hell condition of neglect or oblivion (2) (prison, confinement = half a mark.) 15.2. Derived from. FRENCH (1) from LATIN (1) = he~; border (~+!) (3) 15.3. limbos ~.:Nomark for limbo' s or limbONs) (1 ) 1'6. COMPARISON 16.1. setting indus trial d ty, t·.go'·1 (2) (smoky 1/2; dark 1/,1) 16.2. atmosphere depressing; lifeless; harsb.;: sinister (2) 16.3. activity ironworks; Smeltin~ '(2.) \1 \~" II 17. 17 •.1 • b~.utY - (Para. 2) "red rivulet..-, of fire (~'I . '...d i.n: C .. / I wJ.n J.ng... u" "slow moving blue flames of sulphur ..... " "drifts of sllloke are rosy with sulphur ••• ,II "fiery serpent s of iron ...• under the bIcv" (1 + 1 for explana.tion x 2) (4) 17.2. A sense of identity/contentment with a homely environment (2): "he lost all sense of dis comf0rt," / "wa.rme~.•.•... " ( 1 ) (3) o SECtION uD (Scope for better cand.idaces., Discrilllinator questions) 18. Article is satirical (1 ) I Concenl:': Whales being affecced by .human pollution (1) Intention: Criticism of human behavotrr b foolishness selfishness irresponsibility Aiming co highlight the above AND force people to teform (2) Tone: lightheared/humor.o~s/satirical (1 ) (Candidates nus t not confuse tone with te~ist;er) (~;:t:~d~::~~~a;;:~;dh;:~'~a~k~~ed!~}.;':K'· ($) llumojf(: "School of peoPle"= inversion of collective noun i '() Iff! "cover with oil. .•• sizzle'"': o.bjective dist.ancin.g reveal.s absurdity-· I people made co create garbage.> satirical/l.-ecogr;-isabl(; foible !/ etc. (1 mark ;or humorous incident + :! for explanation) (:3) 20. "Your father and t were noc happyll (NCT $ !) (2) 21. Irony (1) : man won't: kill arrimaLs but content to destroy treElS. (1) (2) -, 22. SUMMARY"Synthesis of infomadon) Issues required (I) (Passage Four) ship spilling oil over the ",'hales (I) chopping down of forests (for COlIIIllercial reasons) (I) (Section E~~artoori) Killing seals and skinning them alive to be us ed as fur coats (1) (Passage TWo) slag heaps. polluted rivets and air/smoke emission. (I) ,. (Passages 3.1. and 3.2. ugly factories <:ie.stroying countryside (I) man can adapt to the above~}but to (Passage One) r~tain his h.umanity he needs to express h.is basic creative instincts as part of the natural order (I) TOTAL: 8 ~{S The. Summary is to be marked. on its factual cencenc (8 issues .. 8 :uarks) and on i~ fluent seyle (7 ~ark$) = (!r 8 marks for COntent 7 marks fOr style (i.e.syntax, smooch sentence conscrucdon, organisation) St:,'le lotadt 7 Excellent; n.u(tnc and easy to read ti Very good., bur: not stYUstieall:r per::ect 5 .Good, but wit:h a few seylist:j.c errors. 4. Acceptable H;,le \' but flawed. ProQably poor synthesis of sencences r ,> 2, J JerkY, a...kw.1rd style. A Yeak candida!:!! Virtually illiterate Penal'ty \\ Author: Bam Carl Laurence. Name of thesis: Inferencing And Syntactic Complexity As Two Determinants Of Comprehension Difficulty. PUBLISHER: University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg ©2015 LEGALNOTICES: Copyright Notice: All materials on the Un ive rs ity of th e Witwa te rs ra nd, J 0 han nesb u rg Li b ra ry website are protected by South African copyright law and may not be distributed, transmitted, displayed or otherwise published in any format, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Disclaimer and Terms of Use: Provided that you maintain all copyright and other notices contained therein, you may download material (one machine readable copy and one print copy per page)for your personal and/or educational non-commercial use only. 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